Prometheus Bound
by AnarchicMuse
Summary: There once was a tale of three brothers and the gifts bestowed upon them by Death. Such a tale is one of intrigue, of adventure, of tragedy. Such a tale is a lie. Or; a story of time travel, genocide, and a boy who just wants to live.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Here lies your first and only warning, this story will contain slash.**

 **Edit 04/26/2018: I thought I knew what I was doing. I swear I thought I did. I planned the story from start to finish, pairings and all. But my muse does love to make a fool of me. The end pairing I had planned was meant to be slash, but the more I write these characters and watch them form outside of the outline I built I'm not so sure anymore. So new warning: there may be slash, there may be no pairing at all. Do with that what you may.**

* * *

 _This only left one parcel. Harry picked it up and felt it. It was very light. He unwrapped it._

 _Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds. Ron gasped._

" _I've heard of those," he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione. "If that's what I think it is-they're really rare, and really valuable."_

" _What is it?"_

 _Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material._

" _It's an invisibility cloak," said Ron, a look of awe on his face. "I'm sure it is-try it on."_

 _Harry threw the cloak around his shoulders and Ron gave a yell._

" _It is! Look down!"_

 _Harry looked down at his feet, but they were gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head suspended in midair, his body completely invisible._

 _He pulled the cloak over his head and his reflection vanished completely._

* * *

 _I open at the close_

 _The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible._

 _And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: they were fetching him._

* * *

" _So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" whispered Harry. "Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does…I am the true master of the Elder Wand."_

* * *

He had only wanted rest. After the day and the week and the _year_ he'd had there wasn't much else he wanted. But they were there when his feet carried him on instinct to the shared bedroom he hadn't stepped foot in since the death of his mentor; the three objects he'd separated and displaced in hopes that they would never be used for anyone's greed and gain again sat upon the red and gold comforter as if they were made to be there.

A hand, unsteady in its uncertainty, reached out to touch them, but at the very last moment it drew back, as if scared they might burn. The stone, the wand, and the cloak did not have minds of their own, or any other autonomy for that matter, they couldn't have made it here without aide from _someone_. But who had been there to see him drop the stone in a spot in the forest not even he could remember? To watch him tuck the wand back within the cold grip of the dead headmaster or the cloak into the beaded bag for temporary safekeeping? No one he had thought. And even if someone had been there to see all three acts, why would they return them to him? Why not claim the three undoubtedly powerful objects as their own?

Harry exhaled wearily, then finally shook off his inexplicable wariness to gather the three Hallows into his grasp. Perhaps his hasty plan of ditching the stone and returning the wand hadn't been the wisest, whoever had returned them had given him a second chance to truly makes sure they were safe and away from anyone's reach.

The wand went into his back pocket and the cloak around his shoulder. It would be easier to get out of the castle if he wasn't mobbed by adoring wizards and witches wanting to shake his hand, to kiss their babies, to thank him and tell him they'd never doubted him, when in truth every last one of them had been despairing over the fact that only a seventeen year old Hogwarts dropout stood between them and the Dark Lord. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate their gratitude, he did, but he had hoped that after the war he could just fade into the background, hoped that he could finally be Harry, normal, boring, _ordinary_ Harry. It was a foolish hope, but he couldn't bring himself to stop.

The Resurrection Stone remained in his hands for a moment longer, flipped without any intent between his fingers. Remus was dead, Tonks was dead, _Fred_ was dead. The list was long and devastating, but Harry felt no urge to call upon any of them. Their deaths had been ugly, brutal, unnecessary, the least he could do was leave them to the peace of the afterlife.

Finally the Stone joined its sister Hallow in his back pocket, a tight squeeze and not at all secure, but it would get the job done. He would need shoes, preferably with socks, both of which had been carelessly discarded in his eagerness to burrow beneath his somewhat dusty sheets. The overstuffed mattress of his four poster bed and the thick curtains that blocked out even the memory of sunlight were a luxury whose absence he'd felt every night he'd spent on the narrow, meagerly padded cots that the tent they'd called their home for the better part of a year had to offer. A luxury that he had been looking forward to reclaiming.

His left shoe was wedged between his headboard and the wall, Merlin knows how that got there, while the other was entangled in the velvet curtains hanging only partially open around the border of his four poster. His socks, unfortunately, were another matter entirely, the bloody things may as well have up and sprouted their own little legs with all the luck he was having finding them.

"Should have shoved them in my shoes," Harry muttered with his head shoved beneath his bed. He couldn't see a damned thing in the enclosed space, but maybe he could sniff them out, he couldn't remember the last time anything he'd worn had been properly washed. He cursed when a particularly deep inhalation drew a large clump of dust halfway up his nose. "Ah, shite. Where are the bloody things?"

The dorm was meant to be empty, Harry had only been talking to himself and his elusive socks, he hadn't been expecting an answer of any kind. So when his words were greeted by a low, almost eerie muttering, he reared back in surprise, which turned out to be a bad decision as his head was still buried beneath his bed and so came in jarring contact with the solid, wooden slats that held the whole thing together.

" _Fuck_." He clumsily extricated himself from beneath the wooden monstrosity and glared around the room with watering eyes. It was empty, just as he thought it had been all this time, but he'd heard something, he was _still_ hearing something. A murmuring, nearly silent and impossible to discern, but undeniably there.

"Who's in here? It's probably in your best interest to stop hiding, I just finished fighting a war, I can and will curse you if you startle me, and I won't feel sorry afterwards."

Harry tilted his head and listened, the whispers, the muttering, whatever the hell they were had not changed in pitch, remaining at that same infuriatingly quiet volume that had his ears straining to pick up on the words being spoken. If he didn't know any better, he would think the quiet voices were actually the hissing of yet another monstrous creature lurking within Hogwarts' walls.

" _Homenum Revelio_." The spell swept through the dorm and the adjoining restroom, but it yielded nothing, he was alone in the room.

"Harry?"

The green eyed Gryffindor squawked in surprise and pivoted on the balls of his feet. "George? What?" He glared at the wand in his hand in betrayal, maybe the Elder Wand hadn't done such a good job fixing it, not if it couldn't manage a basic _homenum revelio_.

"They won't stop crying."

Harry frowned. "What? Who's crying? Was that you whispering?"

But no, he could still hear the voices, they were if only the slightest bit louder, their words were still indistinguishable, but the tone was clear. They sounded pleading. Lost. _Desperate._

"All they're doing is sitting and crying and touching. Touching me. I don't like it, I want them to stop."

"I don't understand. Do you mean your family?"

"I tried asking them to stop, but they can't hear me, no one can hear me. Except you. You can hear me. You can talk to them for me."

This wasn't right. This wasn't George. The young man before him was a cheap, worn out version of what he had once been, as if he'd been churned about in the bloody seas of the war for too long only to be wrung out and hung up to dry in the stripping sun. His skin held no color, his eyes were devoid of the warm spark of life, and yet he was whole. Two arms, two legs, two ears. He was not George.

"Fred?"

Harry took a step forward and Fred took one back, out of reach of his young friend's touch.

"I don't want you to touch me."

"What? Why?"

A humorless smile quirked too pale lips, a far cry from the usual mischievous smirk. "It hurts to look at you. It burns. I'd hate to find out what it feels like to touch you."

There was so much wrong with that statement, so much wrong with this _situation_ , Harry didn't even know where to start. "You're dead. But you're here, are you-are you a ghost?"

Fred shook his head. "I don't think so, they can see me and speak to me, but they're different. I'm different."

"What are you?"

"Stuck. I think I'm stuck."

Harry winced, his hands crawled up the sides of his face to press into his ears. The whispers were no longer just desperate, they were louder and angrier and clamoring to be heard. They weren't overly loud, he could still here the catch of his own breath, the brush of his feet against the carpet, but the mutter of those voices was comparable to the slow drag of jagged nails on chalkboard.

"They don't like being ignored." Fred tilted his head, hearing what Harry couldn't. "They want you to listen to them."

"Yeah? Well, let them know not to hold their breaths. Their voices are wooly, like static, I couldn't listen even if I wanted to."

"They don't like that."

" _I_ don't like _this_."

The shadows lurking on the edge of his vision twisted unhappily, they grew longer, stretching, reaching for him, before drawing back suddenly. Harry shuddered and his jaw clenched uncomfortably, the discordant rasp of each whisper, each moan, each wail, sent a lance of not quite pain, but most certainly discomfort, through each temple.

"Enough."

"They just want to be heard."

"I said _enough_. Shut up!"

A switch flipped and the voices fell absolutely silent, Fred reeled back, struck by an invisible force that clamped his jaw shut. As if in direct contradiction, Harry's own fell open. He was momentarily taken aback by the immediate response to his ire.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout."

Without thinking, he reached out and grasped Fred's elbow, as if to help him regain his kilter. A part of him was expecting his hand to pass through the limb, despite his denial Fred had to be a ghost, there was no other explanation for his presence. But Harry's hand met solid, if not a bit too cool flesh.

It took a moment for the contact to register, it had happened unconsciously and in the stilted moment between two blinks of an eye. They were utterly still for one long second but then it registered and Harry realized that the touch didn't hurt Fred like the redhead had feared, it hurt _him_.

It started off as an itch, a heavily uncomfortable sensation that held the promise of pain if not relieved in due time. But then the itch became a burn, radiating from the point where Harry met Fred and sweeping throughout his body into his core. Harry tore his hand away and staggered back several steps, but the damage had already been done; he let out a distressed whimper when his blood turned to acid sludge and yet continued to chug laboriously through his veins and burn a pathway through his heart.

Frantic hands tore into the thin, worn fabric of his shirt, granting him access to the itching, burning, excruciating flesh beneath. He scratched until bloody furrows carved searing pathways across his torso, but the drag of his fingers did nothing to relieve the pain. He gasped and he writhed until his legs gave beneath him and his fingers no longer had any flesh left to carve. Was this how he was to die? Prostrate between the unused beds of the boys dormitory? Darkening the rich burgundy of the carpet with his blood and tears and sweat? This ailment, whatever it was, was going to do what the darkest wizard in centuries had failed to do, and it would have him wishing for it to hurry up and finish the job as it did.

Harry heaved with the effort of pushing himself to his knees, if he was going to die he would do so on his feet. And to his surprise, that one act of determined fury caused the pain to falter; he was so focused on rising without ending up with his face planted in the carpet once more that the pain was, not forgotten, but at least momentarily not at the forefront of his mind. Bolstered by this discovery, Harry forced his body across the room and through the open door to the attached loo, each step tempered the pain that had only minutes before had him likening his bones to gelatin.

The uncharacteristically loud blast of water bursting from the faucet and the splash of frigid water he threw at his face helped to ground him a bit, though it did nothing to calm his violently shaking hands or clear his eyesight, which was painfully blurry and causing his head to ache.

He inhaled deeply, inflating his lungs for several seconds before releasing the oxygen in a heavy gush. Once. Twice. And again. The familiar routine forced the blood he could feel pounding behind his eyes to slow and, in turn, steadied his hands. The sharp burn of agony lessened with each breath he took, but his entire body remained coiled and tensed, half convinced the inexplicable pain would return any moment and refusing to be caught off guard once again. He was burning (in the metaphorical sense this time around) to work out what had afflicted him. What had caused his body to rebel against him so violently? And it seemed the only person with even the faintest idea of what had occurred had gone uncharacteristically silent.

Blessedly steady legs led him back out into the main room where he found himself to, once again, be alone.

"Fred? I didn't scare you off with all my writhing and flailing, did I?" Disquiet twisted Harry's stomach when he received no response. "Fred?"

The older male's presence had already been cause for alarm, what with him having died the previous night, but his disappearance elicited even greater concern. If Fred really were a ghost, he could have hurried off to find Harry help when the first bout of agony had torn through him, but something told him that that wasn't the case. Fred hadn't been a ghost, not the sort he was used to at least, and he hadn't just wandered off, he was gone. Harry was sure of it.

But he could call him back, he could ensure whatever had momentarily incapacitated him hadn't hurt Fred as well, he need only use the Stone to summon him.

The Stone was no longer in his back pocket, nor was the Wand, and the Cloak had fallen free from his shoulders. But that was fine, he'd done quite a bit of thrashing around earlier, they'd likely been dislodged and, even now, were waiting for him to retrieve them. Only they weren't

He had fallen in the few meters of space between his and Ron's beds, shredded bits of his shirt and droplets of blood adorned the small space, but the Hallows were neither around, beneath, or on top of either bed.

His holly wand was still there, having just rolled past the foot of his bed at some point in time. With it, he attempted to summon the Hallows, first altogether ( _"Accio Deathly Hallows")_ then each by their individual name. Not so much as a dust bunny stirred.

Panic and an overwhelming sense of wrong spurred his movements as he tore the room apart in search of the three objects; beneath Neville, Dean, _and_ Seamus' beds were searched, between bedsheets and cushions, in nooks and crannies that hadn't been touched in months but were still thoroughly searched anyway. And when it became obvious that the Hallows were not in the bedroom, he moved into the bathroom. It was as he was shaking out one of many neatly folded towels that the door to the dormitory creaked open and two pairs of footsteps entered the room.

"Harry? Are you in here?"

There was one brief moment where Harry considered not answering, where he contemplated diving into one of the shower stalls and hoping Hermione and Ron would go in search for him somewhere else. But then Hermione was there and her eyes were frowning in that way he hated as she took in the destruction he had wrought.

"What are you doing?"

Harry floundered for a moment, it was quite obvious what he was doing (though the why was likely not as obvious) but he wasn't about to explain why she'd caught him in the middle of demolishing the neat towel pyramid that stood as the centerpiece of the boys' bathroom. "I, uh, was about to take a shower."

The fine lines around Hermione's eyes deepened as her gaze traveled from the towel now clutched loosely in his fist, up his arm, before settling on his bare torso. "You're bleeding."

Harry had nearly forgotten about the lines he had cut into his skin in his fit of agonized panic, they still itched and stung like you wouldn't believe, but he'd been too distracted to pay the mild irritation any mind.

"Yeah, I had a nightmare. It was bad."

He knew he should feel bad for using an affliction that had once seriously affected him to get her off of his scent, but Voldemort was dead, there would only be so many more times he could use the nightmare excuse before it began to lose its effectiveness. He may as well milk it for all it was worth while he still had the chance.

Before he could follow up his false admission with even falser assurances that he was, or at least would be, fine, Ron was at Hermione's elbow, taking in the sight of Harry's shredded torso with an awed sort of horror.

"Merlin's balls, you really did a number on yourself."

Harry shrugged self-consciously and only just stopped himself from crossing his arms over his chest in what would no doubt be a painful and entirely fruitless attempt to cover the worst of the damage. "It felt like there were bugs crawling under my skin, guess that was the only way I knew how to make them stop. I'm fine now though, I stopped once I woke up."

Ron bit his lip uncertainly. "They don't look that deep, but there's a lot to get infected. Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey, let her patch you up."

Harry balked at the thought of leaving the tower. As word of Voldemort's demise spread, a slow trickle of tentatively hopeful wizards and witches arrived at Hogwarts' gates; some to see if the rumors were true, others to offer their aid with healing the wounded and repairing damages done to the castle, some came to reunite with loved ones, but then there were the unlucky few who had come to collect their dead. They were the ones Harry had secluded himself up in the tower to avoid, the ones who stared at him with their accusing stares as tears wet their cheeks and hollow condolences from a million people who didn't matter rang in their ears. He avoided them because he knew that their accusations weren't unfounded, maybe if he'd been a bit faster, a tad braver their family members, their sons, their daughters, mothers and fathers would be still alive.

Hermione, beautiful, understanding Hermione, seemed to sense the cause behind his hesitation as she offered an alternative option. "Or I could do it, I've still got a bit of dittany left."

Harry nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. But maybe let me shower first, I can wash away all this blood and give you a better idea of what you're working with."

Hermione didn't look entirely convinced, no doubt she was eager to rid him of the marks marring his torso, she had never liked seeing her friends in pain, but Ron nodded and gently wrapped his hands around her arms, using the grip to steer her back out into the bedroom.

He smiled softly at Harry, though it didn't fully reach his eyes, as he reached out to grasp the door handle. "Take your time, I'll ward her off the best I can."

The door shut with a soft click and Harry finally allowed the painfully false smile he'd affixed to his face to drop. He gave the towel tower he'd previously been demolishing a half-hearted glance before sinking back onto his haunches with a heavy sigh. The Hallows weren't there. He could spend the rest of the evening upending laundry hampers and tearing apart bedrooms, but he would not find them anywhere in Gryffindor tower. And yet, a part of him, a small, niggling voice at the back of his head assured him that they weren't _gone_ gone. They had not fallen into the hands of a ne'er do well wizard intent on enacting Voldemort's final vison. The Hallows were gone, but they hadn't been lost.

 _Gone but not lost._ The thought left Harry disgruntled, he couldn't even trust his own mind to make sense anymore.

Despite having likely not been used since the beginning of the new year, the showerhead furthest from the door took less than three seconds before it was producing water hot enough to send clouds of steam billowing throughout the entire room. The torrent washed away the blood that stiffened his skin and the tension that bunched his muscle in a matter of minutes, but he remained under for a while longer. The heavy rush of water over his ears dampened the sounds of Hermione and Ron moving about in the room outside, for a moment, there was only him, not even his thoughts dared disturbed him.

But soon enough, too soon, he had to surrender the tranquil moment and shut the showerhead off, there was only so long Ron could keep Hermione at bay after all. One of the many towels displaced during his bid to find the gone but not lost Hallows was draped over his shoulders and used to gently pat at his torso. The ribboned flesh was sore, each pat of the towel irritated his tender skin, but it wasn't near as painful as it should have been, one cursory glance down revealed exactly why.

As if the water he'd showered in had been laced with dittany, the numerous shallow lacerations he'd inflicted upon himself had closed over. A fragile layer of skin had healed over them, leaving behind no sign but the silvery pink of fading scars, he was sure that in a few hours even those would be gone.

Was this a side-effect of finally being rid of Voldemort's accidental Horcrux? Now that it was no longer leeching off of his magic was he finally reaching his full potential? But no ordinary wizard had above average healing, not without liberal use of certain spells, potions, and salves. So did this stem from that long moment of pain? Had whatever inflicted him changed him deeper than he could see?

The thought sent disquiet shivering down Harry's spine as, suddenly, he no longer felt comfortable in his own skin. He was different, he had changed on a level that surpassed the superficiality of skin.

Facing his reflection in the slightly fogged mirror, there _were_ differences, though none so radical to be noticed by anyone who wasn't as intimately familiar with his face as he was. His eyes were just a touch too wide, a shade too green, his skin had taken on a pallor that could only be described as deathly, and yet it bespoke of longevity, _vitality._ But the greatest change wasn't one that could be viewed by the naked eye, it was a feeling and yet it was almost tangible. A shroud that clung heavy to him like a viscous smoke, it reeked of darkness and death, but it didn't feel inherently evil. Not evil, but still not right because it wasn't him.

The longer he focused on the clinging aura, the more uncomfortable he became, and, as his discomfort grew, he slowly became aware of the voices once again plucking at the very edges of his consciousness.

"Stop." Harry knew, even as the word left his mouth, that it wouldn't have the same effect as it had the last time he had ordered the voices away. He lacked the energy and the fury required to truly compel them, though he was certain the latter would come in due time.

There was a soft knock at the door, jarring Harry from his distress long enough for him to lunge for the jogger's he'd tossed aside earlier and hastily shove them on. "Harry? It's been nearly an hour." Hermione was obviously trying to repress the worry in her voice, but faint strains of it still tainted her words. "Are you all right?"

"No-I mean, yeah. Yes." Harry cleared his throat nervously. "I'm just…I might need some help."

There was a pause, and then, "Can you unlock the door?"

Harry didn't even move, not a finger lifted, but the moment his eyes flickered over to the turned handle, it _unlocked._ He whimpered pitiably.

Hermione entered the restroom, Ron only a few steps behind her, and immediately focused her gaze on where Harry stood somewhat awkwardly before the row of sinks. She took in his still damp hair, his worn joggers, then settled on his bared chest.

"You healed yourself? You know I could have-"

"I didn't. This wasn't me." Harry winced at the near hysterical pitch to his voice. "Sorry, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts." He took a breath to steel himself. "Can you…can you hear that? Can you hear _them?_ "

Both Hermione and Ron took a moment to stop and listen, for what they weren't sure, but whatever it was was clearly upsetting their friend and they were eager to put an end to it. But there was nothing, they couldn't hear anything but their own quiet breaths. Harry looked absolutely gutted when they told him so.

He looked around anxiously as he spoke between tremulous breaths. "I think I might be going mad." He knocked roughly on his temple. "Voices, I can hear voices. I want them to stop. I asked them to and then I told them too but they won't be quiet. They won't stop."

An involuntary noise of confused distress bubbled from the back of Hermione's throat. "What are they saying?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't understand them. They're too quiet, they're whispering."

Harry was clearly distressed, only a few wrong questions away from what could potentially be a panic attack, only incredible amounts of stubbornness had kept him this calm for so long. But then Hermione touched him, one hand on the side of his face and the other on the inside of his wrist, and his tentative control began to unravel.

It didn't hurt, thank Merlin it didn't hurt, and yet the alternative was (debatably) just as bad. Harry's vision flickered out and the pleasant humidity that lingered after his long shower was swept away by a sharp, dry cold that froze the marrow in his bones. He was no longer in the bathroom, somehow that simple touch had transported him to a room. Dark and so tiny he couldn't stretch unless he lay diagonally on the floor, head in one corner and feet in the opposing one. His lungs rattled wetly, filled with the condensation that went down with each breath and his entire body trembled pitiably. He could hear others in the rooms (cells?) around him. Some were weeping, some were screaming, but they all fell silent when there was a dull rattle followed by the sudden plunge in the already arctic temperatures. Death was coming.

The room around him exploded. There was a shriek of surprise and Harry was suddenly doused in a geyser of water, yanking him free from whatever nightmare he'd been trapped in. All around him, chaos raged, the pipes that connected to the sinks, the toilets, and even the showers had burst, sending water in powerful arcs all around. Ron spluttered and cursed as he attempted to run from the bathroom but only managed to skid across the slippery stone and collapse against the sink where he promptly got a faceful of water. But both Hermione and Harry remained still, staring at each other with wide, fearful eyes.

She was the first to speak, barely audible over the roar of broken pipes. "What was that?"

Harry shook his head. She had seen it too, he hadn't been the only one to experience that horror. "I'm going mad."

When he turned to leave, Hermione's hands remained clutched to her chest, she didn't try to touch him again

He left the dorms, he left the tower, he left the castle. Harry wanted to be alone, he wanted to be away, so he went to the forest. It was involuntary, his body was on autopilot, his feet carried him of their own accord through the double doors, across the grounds, past Hagrid's hut. He didn't particularly _want_ to return to the place where he nearly died, and yet when he slunk into the treeline he felt one tiny knot in the clusterfuck that was his nerves loosen infinitesimally.

A morbid sense of curiosity led him back to the scene of the crime, the clearing where Voldemort's Death Eaters had watched and jeered and _cheered_ as he died. It looked so different in the fading light of early evening, it looked _normal_ , completely unlike any place he would venture to willingly hand his life over. Though he wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected coming here, Voldemort was dead, his Death Eaters gone, this was, once again, just a clearing, just a forest, and he was just a boy. Or at least he should be. He _wanted_ to be.

"So this is where it happened."

Harry flinched violently at the sudden intrusion to his not-so-happy place. Luna had appeared, silent and as ethereal as a forest nymph; her bare feet, the dirt crowning her cheekbones, and the way she clung to the trunk of the tree nearest him only lent credence to the image.

The young Ravenclaw's eyes were just as pale and disconcerting as they'd always been, but there was a darkness to them that reminded Harry that Luna had been a prisoner of Voldemort's forces only a few short weeks ago. She unapologetically used their unsettling force to fix him in place. "This is where they met."

Harry's head bent sharply to the left and his brows crowded together. "Voldemort and I?" He nodded, unsure how Luna could know that this was the exact place where Voldemort's end had begun, but he'd long since come to accept that, sometimes, she just _knew_. "Yes, this is where we met."

"Not you and the dark lord. Your Heart. It's whole again."

"I don't understand."

Luna hummed sweetly, her bare feet disturbed not a single fallen leaf as she crept closer. "That's all right, you have time."

A smile coaxed its way across Harry's mouth. "I do. Don't I? I've got all the time in the world now." That had never been a notion he'd had the chance to consider, having time to do what he pleased, it was daunting, but in the best way possible.

"All the time in the worlds," was Luna's characteristically odd agreement. "Is it strange having them in you? Can you feel them?"

"Er." Harry couldn't help but run a nervous, searching hand over his torso. "What exactly do you think is inside me?"

"Your Heart."

"My heart? Well of course I can feel it, though only when I'm paying close attention. Can't you?"

"Well, I don't have any."

"Any? You don't have a heart?" Harry sighed, forcibly stopping his confused queries before he made things worse. "Luna, dear, I love your strangeness, you know I do, but can you, just for one second, say something that _makes sense?_ "

"Your _Heart_."

This time Harry could practically see the capitalization she put on the second word.

"In uniting the three pieces, you made them yours."

Slowly, the muddles puzzle pieces she spoke slotted into place. "The Hallows?"

Luna rolled her eyes as if it were obvious. It _wasn't_. "Yes, the Hallows. They're yours, aren't they?"

Harry hesitated to respond, unwilling to confirm or deny the assumption, though with Luna that likely made very little difference.

"They changed you though."

Very little difference at all. But if she knew something, _anything_ , maybe it would be okay to unofficially confirm it. "Can you see what they did to me?" He subconsciously rubbed at his left pectoral, one of the places that inexplicable pain had taken especial delight in tearing into.

"They fixed you." An excited gleam momentarily chased away the shadows in Luna's gaze. "They let you see, hear, _feel._ "

Harry matched her enthusiasm with what he was beginning to feel was perpetual bewilderment. "See what?"

"Everything."

The frame of Harry's glasses received a sharp prod. "Doesn't feel like it."

"No." Luna shook her head, fondly exasperated, but still near glowing with delight. "It goes deeper than that. Past what the normal eye can see. But you can't fear them, you have to accept them, _embrace them_ , otherwise all you'll see ever see is the horror in death, not the beauty and the peace."

"Death?" Harry frowned unhappily. "Mine?"

Luna laughed despite the morbid turn the conversation had abruptly taken. "Everyone's but."

Harry didn't particularly like the sound of that, but something told him he would get nothing more concrete from her. "How do you know so much?"

A serene smile overtook Luna's entire face. "Haven't you heard? I'm odd."

* * *

Harry and Luna lay in the dirt and the leaves and the bugs and watched the moon rise in the very same spot where Harry had once lay dead. Harry drew upon his years of Astronomy lessons to map out the constellations, while Luna made up her own, and when the errant cloud or two disrupted their star gazing, they squinted at the balls of fluff until their eyes tricked them into seeing shapes that weren't really there. Harry was content, he was so drunk off of laughter he might even consider himself to be happy. He would have remained in that clearing with Luna until the sun rose if it weren't for Ron and Hermione's arrival.

The two arrived with none of the ghostly silence and surreal grace that Luna had, their frightened whispers and stumbling steps alerted the stargazers of their approach long before they stepped into the clearing.

"How did you find me?" Harry posed the question with no anger or irritation, only contended laziness with only subtle hints of curiosity.

Hermione was the one to answer. "Well, after we checked all of your usual haunts and came up with nothing we came back here and used a point me spell." She shrugged and refused to blush under Harry's incredulous gaze. "Yes, I'm aware of how impractical that was, but with you not in your usual spots, we hoped you were just lurking somewhere in the castle and that the spell would lend us a bit of a hand in leading us to you."

"I don't lurk."

Ron immediately and mercilessly shut down his protests. "You lurk. You're actually scarily good at it. Like a vampire or something."

Harry flipped him the finger. "Go away. You're ruining our feng shui."

"I don't think that means what you think it does. But you were close." Hermione circled around Harry's prone body so that she could lean directly over him and peer down into his face. "What are you doing out here?"

"Well, we _were_ stargazing." Harry allowed a pointed silence to linger for a moment, hoping Hermione would realize that her unfairly enormous head and even more unfairly enormous hair were inhibiting his view of the stars. She realized, she just didn't care.

"You had us worried. What you did because of your nightmare, the way you blew up those pipes, the voices only you could hear….that vision."

"I lied."

The full blown worry attack Hermione was quickly approaching faltered. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't have a nightmare, I only said that to distract you."

Worry quickly turned to dangerous anger. "Distract me from what?"

"I think I united the Deathly Hallows."

Ron frowned, though more from confusion than from any actual anger. "But I thought you got rid of them. You put the wand back in Dumbledore's tomb, we saw you do that, and the stone is still somewhere here in the forest."

Harry nodded in vehement agreement. "I did. It was. But when I went up to the dorm they were waiting for me, as if I'd never tried to get rid of them."

Luna offered Harry a sympathetic but irritatingly knowing smile. "All it took was one time. Once united they'll never be separated again."

"Okay, wait." Hermione folded her legs beneath her, ignoring the damp dirt that soaked into her jeans, in order to sit level with Harry and Luna. Ron was quick to follow suit. "Start from the beginning so we can understand. You got rid of the stone and the wand earlier this morning but when you went to the dorm they were there? But then what?"

Harry hesitated, pondering the best way to explain the events that had occurred only a few hours earlier. But in the end, there was no gentle way to put it. "I saw Fred. He appeared in the dorms after I found the Hallows, but he wasn't normal, he wasn't like any of the other ghosts."

Ron looked pale. "What do you mean?"

"He didn't float and he wasn't translucent." Harry paused trying to recall every moment he'd spent with the strange, undead Fred. "He was pale, washed out, but he looked _real_. At first I thought he was George, but he had both ears. When I tried to talk to him he seemed disoriented, I don't think he knew what was going on either."

"What happened to him?"

Harry quelled his urge to fidget mindlessly by plucking at the blades of dying grass around himself. "He wasn't the only one there. I couldn't see them, but there were others talking, whispering things I couldn't hear."

"The voices you asked us about before you ran," Hermione realized.

"Yes." Harry nodded uncomfortably. "There were so many of them, it was hurting my head. So I told them to stop, I yelled it, and they did, but it did something to Fred. When I reached out to touch him he disappeared and I…I hurt."

Ron inched closer to Harry, but he very noticeably didn't touch him. "You hurt?"

"It was like the Cruciatus, but so much worse because I didn't know where it was coming from, I didn't know what was happening to me, _why_ it was happening."

"Is that what happened to you?" Ron gestured to Harry's bare torso where lacerations had once adorned his skin.

Harry tugged shakily at the ends of his hair as he nodded. "I just wanted it to stop, it hurt so bad. When it did, I realized the Hallows were gone, I searched everywhere but I couldn't find them anywhere. And then you two showed up and…well everything after that happened."

"So what do you think this means?" Hermione looked between her three friends. "The stories say that the one to unite the Hallows becomes the Master of Death, but that doesn't mean literally does it?"

Luna shook her head. "Not Death's master, only his equal."

"Where can we go to find out more about this? There has to be something other than the children's story."

"Leave it."

Clearly the last response she had been expecting or wanting to hear, Hermione turned the full force of her gaze on Harry, seeling clarification. "What."

"I'd rather we just left it, at least for a little." Harry shifted only just enough so that he could look up at the sky with no obstructions by way of bushy brown hair. "No books, no research, we're just going to...let it all play out how it will. I just want to take a break?"

Hermione didn't look all too pleased with this idea, but she understood, Harry knew she did. "This isn't something that we can just ignore and hope it goes away, but maybe you're right, maybe we do need a break. We'll let it rest _for now_. Long enough for us to regain our bearings, but not a moment longer. Agreed?"

Harry nodded reluctantly. "Agreed."

* * *

Harry left the castle early the next morning. Despite sequestering himself in Gryffindor tower, the voices that whispered continued to plague him, and though they never rose above a muted mutter, they were there and impossible to tune out.

So he sought quiet in Grimmauld Place. It had been a pleasant surprise to find that the place had made it through the war entirely unscathed; the last time he had been to the townhome bequeathed to him by his godfather, Yaxley had hitched a ride and broken through the wards. He, Ron, and Hermione had only stuck around long enough to release Hermione from the man's grip before apparating away, leaving the man to wander and plunder the house to his heart's content. And yet not a thing had been touched, everything from the nasty looking portraits to the severed house elf heads were as they should be. It was as if Yaxley had never entered Grimmauld Place. And, according to Kreacher, that was nearly the case.

The Death Eater hadn't even managed to make it past the front hall before Harry's somewhat mad, but incredibly effective house elf used his elven magic to transport him halfway across the country. With no address and no immediately recognizable landmarks, he had not been able to find his way back.

Kreacher smiled wide and jubilant when Hary thanked him for protecting their home; the good mood granting him Riddle's locket had put him in had obviously yet to wear off, a good thing for Harry as, in the coming weeks, the elf would be his only steady source of company.

Hermione had wanted to stick around, keep an eye on her boys for a while longer, but her parents' memories needed to be restored and the fragile state the unconsented use of mind magic had put their relationship in needed to be rectified. Ron, in the meanwhile, had returned to the Burrow to spend time with his family as they worked through their loss and prepared to put Fred to rest.

It was lonely without their constant presence, especially after having spent so much time on the run, living in such close proximity to each other, but they all needed a bit of time away from each other, time to find themselves after having played such an active part in a war so early in life.

And if Harry's idea of 'finding himself' mostly consisted of wandering Grimmauld Place's halls (very cautiously) picking through the strange, and oftentimes dark, artifacts that had survived Mrs. Weasley's purge from a few years ago, no one was there to judge him. He'd stumbled on some fascinating finds in the time; a fully intact thestral skeleton tucked within a closet in one of the many studies, an opal wrist cuff that, according to Kreacher, held the souls of some of the Black family's worst enemies in each of the jewels studding the band, and even a complete copy of _Secrets of the Darkest Arts._ Never having had the chance to look through Hermione's stolen copy, Harry curiously thumbed through the tome and found spells and rituals on exactly what the book boasted. There was the one they had stolen the first copy for, the creation of Horcruxes, then others on raising Inferi, even a way to commune with the dead. It was an interesting, if not morbid read, but soon set aside for something a bit shinier and for several days, he didn't think once about it. His attention and interest were occupied by other relics that lay about the house. But then those who'd survived Voldemort's reign began laying those who hadn't to rest.

There were many funerals to be had, some of those who had passed Harry wasn't familiar with, but most he was. First Remus and Tonks and her father, Ted, then Colin, then Lavender, before finally Fred.

And Harry attended none.

He had wanted to, so badly it ached, but he was the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Conquered, his presence would only draw the press and create spectacles of what should be private, peaceful affairs. So he hunkered down in the main parlor of Grimmauld Place and honored those who had passed with a sixty year old bottle of firewhiskey.

It was strong, perhaps _too_ strong for someone whose drink of choice was the mostly non-alcoholic butterbeer. After only a single glass, he wasn't entirely drunk, but he was certainly lacking his usual coordination and his judgment was without a doubt terribly impaired. It was on the latter side effect, that he blamed his decision to summon his fallen friends.

Their memory had been nagging him all night, Fred's especially as he had been buried only a few hours before. Harry's slightly inebriated mind wanted to ensure that they truly were at rest, that, even though they were no longer with those they loved, they were still somewhere good, somewhere they could be happy. Figuring out how to go about summoning the deceased was entirely too easy, Harry had literally stumbled upon the answer only a few days prior in a certain notoriously dark text.

The ritual to commune with the dead was fairly simple, all things considered, it required only four ingredients: asphodel, henbane, a branch from an ash tree, and, as most rituals did, blood from the caster to tie the whole thing together. Harry was to entwine the flowers around the branch into a wreath of sorts before burning it over a consecrated fire. While the wreath burned, he was to allow four drops of his blood to fall into the fire as he spoke the incantation to summon his dead.

Asphodel and henbane were found with no trouble in the Black's potion cupboard and Kreacher was more than willing to pop out and grab him a branch of ash despite the late hour. The consecrated fire was his biggest hurdle as he had very little clue what such a fire was or even how to go about consecrating one, so he cast the blue bell fire Hermione had once been so fond of and hoped for the best.

The wreath caught alight the moment it touched the blaze, and Harry immediately began reciting the incantation, not once stumbling over the Latin words. As it was drawing to a close, he quickly cut his hand on a kitchen knife Kreacher had so helpfully provided and allowed his blood to mingle with the ashes of the wreath. All the while he kept the names and faces of those he wished to summon at the forefront of his mind and drew upon every ounce of his desire to see them, to speak with them one last time. The fire seemed to glow brighter for a moment, blinding Harry with its brilliance, before dying down just as quickly and, suddenly, he was no longer alone.

It wasn't Remus, it wasn't Tonks, Fred, or even his parents; across the table from him, dressed in an impeccable black suit, stood an incredibly imposing man. He was strikingly handsome in an unconventional way, his face was all sharp planes and angles, his lips a thin, stern line, and his nose straight and severe, with cheekbones so sharp Harry imagined he could cut himself on them. Dark hair was neatly combed back and fell just to the nape of his neck, contrasting sharply with his deathly pale skin, but matching perfectly with the twin pools of fathomless black locked on Harry's still form.

A slow, predatory smile spread across the man's face. "So you're the bacterium that united my Heart and dares call himself my master. I must say, I'm rather unimpressed."

Harry took a step back, fingers clutched tightly around the handle of his wand. This man radiated power and timelessness and _death_ , and yet Harry didn't feel threatened in his presence, he didn't feel as if he were in danger because he knew without speaking, without any sort of introductions who this stranger was. He had summoned Death.

Such a realization should have him quaking in fear, but he was calm, cool, if not a bit indignant about the entity's condescension. When he spoke, his voice was steady. "Well, that makes two of us then. One would think a powerful being such as yourself would be better at keeping a hold of his toys, and yet here I am picking up after you."

"So you did. You are the first to conquer my possessions and yet you've done nothing with them, you waste their potential." Death seemed genuinely irritated by this. "You could bring this world to its knees with the power you possess but you cling to the pathetic magics taught to you by mortals. Why use sticks and flowers to commune with those who have passed when all you need do is call and they will come crawling?"

Harry felt himself bristling in the face of the man's harsh words. "I'd have loved to save myself the trouble of using _sticks and flowers_ to call upon the dead, but unfortunately your Hallows seem to have run off again. They have a terrible habit of not staying put, don't they?" And, holy shit, he should not be mouthing off to fucking _Death_ lest he wish to be reduced to a pile of ash, but the guy was a _prick_.

"You fool, they've not run off. Once united, my Heart had no more need of their physical binds, they are within you now, part of your core being." Harry flinched when Death poked a long finger into the center of his chest. "You can call upon their power whenever you wish, or you would if you weren't ignoring this gift in a fit of cowardice typical of those of your species."

Harry felt his face twisting into a snarl. "It isn't cowardice. I'm not ignoring them because I'm afraid, I'm ignoring them because I don't want the bloody things. I've had enough death in my life, thanks. So if you're so unhappy with the way I've been using your Hallows, feel free to take them back, but make sure to keep a better hold on them this time around, yeah?"

Rather than being angered by Harry's show of anger, Death seemed the slightest bit amused, though he still didn't completely let go off his aggrieved attitude. "If only it were so easy," he lamented. "My Heart has accepted you as their master, they will not be so easily removed."

"But they _can_ be removed?" Harry urged. "How?"

"You must die. Only when your soul has been reaped will the Hallows be returned to my possession."

Well that was just _great_. "Do you intend to reap my soul then? Or were the tales true and I'm immune to that sort of unpleasantness?"

Death looked down upon Harry, clearly unamused. "Your questions are as obnoxious as they are stupid."

"You are incredibly unpleasant," Harry observed. "Especially to someone who is supposed to be your master."

Death's next scoff was far less amused than his first. "You are no more my master than I am yours."

"I'm not?" Harry's brows drew down in confusion. "But the stories said…"

"I presume you are referring to the tales written by that fool of a Bard."

Harry nodded. "Beedle the Bard's Tale of the Three Brothers, yes."

"There was only a basis of truth to that story. Uniting my Heart does not make you my master."

"So when you gave the Peverells your Hallows-"

Death hissed in irritation. "I did not _give_ them to anyone. They were stolen."

Harry tried his best to hide his disbelief, but he was fairly sure he wasn't at all successful. "Someone stole the Hallows? From _you?_ "

His only response was a venomous glare.

"All right, I get it, we all make mistakes. How did they go about doing that, though? More importantly, why did hey think it would be a good idea? And what even are the Hallows if not three gifts?"

At last, Death seemed pleased by something Harry had asked. "This universe is far more vast than you could ever fathom. There are entire galaxies and star systems your kind have yet to discover, thriving with life, teeming with culture and progression lightyears ahead of the rudimentary practices humankind has managed to scrape together. Referring to you as a bacterium is a kindness as, in the grand scheme of things, you couldn't even be compared to a quark.

"There are thousands of worlds and races yet to be discovered. And in the middle of it all, at the very center of this madness was the Heart."

"The Heart?" Harry repeated blankly.

"The Heart of the Universe was power in its purest form, created eons ago to act as a neutral force in the universe, a balance between the forces of good and evil. When it was discovered by the Celestial Order, they attempted to use it to create some form of order in the universe, but all they succeeded in was placing the full power of the Heart into the hands of the mad titan, Thanos. With the full power of the Heart at his disposal, Thanos wreaked havoc across the universe, destroying entire galaxies indiscriminately. It was only when the universe had been reduced to a barren wasteland did he truly realize the gravity of his actions, so he used the Heart's power once more to revert everything to how it had once been. Once the universe had been restored he relinquished his power and led everyone to believe that he destroyed the Heart."

"But let me guess," Harry said dryly, "he didn't actually destroy it."

"Not in its entirety. He preserved just a piece, barely a sliver of its power, and gifted it to me."

" _You?_ Why you?"

Death barked a twisted sort of laugh. "Because he believed himself to be in love with me, or a version of me that is. And, as all gentlemen do when courting a pretty lady, he presented me with a gift, a token of his affection."

"Only most gentlemen present aforementioned pretty ladies with flowers and jewelry, not masses of energy that have the power to wipe out the universe."

"I'm a creature of expensive tastes," Death shrugged. "I imbued the Heart with my power and intended to use it to build my empire. However, not long after, the remnants of the Heart was stolen from me by one I trusted and used to wage a war against me."

"Who would try to wage a war against _Death?_ " Harry asked incredulously.

The ancient being arched a well-manicured brow. "You would be surprised. However, the story is far too long and far too bloody to waste my time explaining to you at the moment."

Harry rolled his eyes. "All right then. But considering the fact you're standing before me, I'm going to assume you won."

"Your assumptions would be correct," Death nodded. "That sliver of the Heart was truly a force to be reckoned with, however it is a force of balance and so could not be wielded to its true potential by just anyone. To wield such a weapon, one must have some form of balance within themselves. That is why my opponent ultimately failed, but not before he broke the sliver into three pieces and entrusted them to three powerful Necromancers. They paid for his mistakes with their lives, but by then what remained of the Heart had been lost."

"Until now," Harry said dully.

"Exactly. You managed to not only reunite all three pieces of the Heart, but to conquer them in one of the only ways possible."

"And how is that?"

"By conquering Death. You looked me in the face and accepted your fate. When realizing that death is a force far beyond your reckoning, that it could not be stopped, only delayed, and even then not for long, you found the balance that fuels the power of the Heart, for there is nothing more impartial, more neutral, than Death."

"So what does that mean for me exactly?"

Death's lip curled in disgust. "You have become my equal in nearly every sense of the word."

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. "I've become Death?"

"You are able to do what I do, see what I see, but you are not _me_. You are, for lack of a better term, my protégé, you possess most, if not all, of the capabilities of Death. However, there will never be a time when you take up my place as Death as I am a cosmic entity, I cannot die. As long as there is life in this universe, I will exist."

"What does it mean for me then?" Harry asked. "Am I immortal? Can I die?"

"No man, beast, or any other such creature can kill you, only I reserve that honor, and it may not be permanent even then."

"How will we know?"

"You could relinquish your soul to me so I may attempt to harvest the Heart from whatever remains. There is no guarantee it will work and it will be incredibly excruciating for you, but it is a risk I am willing to take."

Harry's stomach tightened at the thought. "Thanks, but I think I'll pass, there's bound to be a better solution. But in the meantime, could you tell me about these…capabilities I've been bequeathed with."

Death arched an eyebrow questioningly. "What have you experienced thus far?"

"Voices, mostly, constantly whispering to me. I've seen friends who have passed on and once I saw a…a vision of something, I'm not entirely sure what it was."

"The most basic of our abilities," Death snorted. "If you are overwhelmed by something as simple as a shade you will be driven mad before you have manifested the full might of your abilities."

Harry flushed in indignation. "I just need to know how to control them. They came upon me with no warning, there was no explanation as to what they were, of course I was overwhelmed. But if you teach me how to control them it won't happen when I begin to manifest any other abilities."

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to waste on such trivial matters."

"Do you really want to spend potentially all of eternity with a being driven mad by the power of this Heart?"

"Who says I will be spending _any_ of eternity with you?"

"We're bound to have to spend some time together," Harry reasoned. "Me being your _protégé_ and all."

"You are …irritating."

"And unimpressive and less than a bacterium, yes, yes, we've been over this already," Harry waved a dismissive hand. "That doesn't, however, mean I'm wrong."

For the briefest of seconds a look that could have passed as _amused_ flitted across Death's face before it was, once again, purged of all emotion. "Do not expect me to teach you anything more than is strictly necessary for your continued mental health. I have far better things to do be doing with my time."

"Duly noted."

"The friends you saw and the voices you hear are nothing more than the shades of souls who have yet to move on. They were attracted by the power of the Heart."

"Shades. Like ghosts?"

"To a certain extent. After a life is lost the souls of those who have passed on are given a choice by my reapers, they can either move on to the next life or they can remain as ghosts. However some souls rebel and refuse to choose either, they remain stuck between worlds, unable to contact those still alive but unable to move on. After several decades, they are forcefully crossed over to the afterlife, but some are known to affect the mortal plane before they do, appearing as unidentified lights, ghostly faces, and such. They are the cause behind many paranormal occurrences in the mundane world."

"So all of the voices I heard were the souls of those who had died in the battle?"

"That is more than likely."

"How do I tell the difference between a ghost and a shade?"

"Ghosts are described as pearly white translucent beings who have a tendency to float instead of walking. Shades look exactly as they did before their deaths, they walk not float, and are neither pearly nor translucent, though they are washed out version of themselves, less bright and colorful, less alive."

So Fred _hadn't_ been a ghost and Harry hadn't killed his soul, he'd only forcefully crossed him, which, while not ideal, was undoubtedly better than the alternative. "You said that I can also summon the dead, anyone I wanted, anytime I wanted, is that it? Is that the scope of my power? Or do I have more to look forward to."

"More." Death's face stretched into a grin that left Harry feeling the slightest bit wary. "Much more. But it will not be immediate, your body needs to change and grow in order to withstand what you will be capable of. I imagine it will be quite painful."

"And when I'm done growing?" Harry pressed. "How will I control them? Can I count on you to help me?"

"Certainly not," Death scoffed. "The key to controlling your abilities is simple."

Harry arched a brow, waiting impatiently.

"Clear your mind."

Harry gaped when the ancient being disappeared just as silently as he had appeared.

" _Fucking bastard._ "

* * *

 **A/N: Triumph is nearly done so I figured I'd go on and post another one of my works lest I start feeling empty inside without fanfiction to take up all of my time. I like to think that Prometheus Bound will stray from the usual Master of Death stories, beginning with the origin of the Hallows, but in the end you all can be the judge of that. Feel free to let me know what you think in that lovely comment box below.**


	2. Chapter 2

Death's visit had been short, it had lasted no longer than ten minutes, and yet it left Harry reeling. For three weeks he had coped with the idea of being the bearer of the Hallows, the supposed 'Master of Death' by ignoring it all; he wanted nothing to do with the madness so he simply went on with life as if the stone were still lost in the forest, the cloak was still folded neatly in his trunk, and the wand was safe in Dumbledore's cold, dead hands. And the crazy thing was, it had _worked._ For three weeks there were no voices, no inexplicable visions, no blinding, back arching pain, and, yeah, maybe their absence had more to do with his being locked away from pretty much any human contact, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

But of course he had to go and ruin it all in one moment of inebriated stupidity. The whole thing could have been avoided, he knew that; he should have just visited the graves of his deceased friends, brought them some flowers, talked to them there like a _normal person_ , the sort of person he was always making a fuss about wishing he could be. Instead he'd gone and consulted a book of some of the darkest arts in an asinine attempt to summon Fred, Remus, Tonks, and maybe a few others (he _still_ wasn't sure what he would have done or even said if he'd actually succeeded).

He had half of a mind to just forget everything Death had told him about the Heart and its power and being his _equal_ and go back to ignoring anything to do with the Hallows, but now that he knew exactly what it meant to have conquered them, now that he knew that he couldn't die and had a whole host of strange abilities to look forward to manifesting in the coming years, that was just a bit harder to do. He didn't _want_ to be Death's master, or equal, or whatever the hell his official title was, he was sick to death of being different, but at the same time he wanted to learn to control what he'd be able to do, he wanted to be able to go out again without being accosted by the dead. So he ventured into the Black family home's library, he scoured the shelf for instructionals on Occlumency and how to 'clear his mind', he spent days among the dusty shelves reading and researching so intently he knew even Hermione would be impressed. And yet his tireless efforts yielded absolutely nothing.

There were plenty of books on Occlumency, almost too many to count, but they all spoke only of the theory of the art, not how to actually go about performing it.

"Not all books be kept in the library." Was Kreacher's explanation when Harry asked him about this phenomenon. "Too many too keep so Mistress kept them safe with the goblins."

Gringotts. Of course the damned books were being kept in the same bank he'd more than likely gotten himself banned for life from. The goblins, no doubt, were no longer any fans of his, but he _needed_ those books and if it meant he'd have to do an embarrassing amount of groveling and pleading for forgiveness, well, he'd suck it up and do it.

Harry held off until the early evening before venturing into Diagon Alley, by then the worst of the lunch rush had passed and he was able to slip through the streets and up to the bank unmolested. Gringotts had been returned to its usual pristine (if not somewhat crooked) condition in the short time he'd been away, it bore no signs of his, Ron, and Hermione's escape via dragon, which he hoped would go some way in diminishing the goblins' ire toward him. At least he and his friends hadn't inflicted permanent damage upon the structure.

Not a single goblin looked his way when he stepped through the doors, but there was no doubt in his mind that they were all hyper aware of his presence. The weight of their disdainful attention did nothing to lessen his unease as he crossed the hall to the goblin furthest from the handful of wizarding patrons, the few wizards present were too interested in their own transactions to notice his arrival, but he felt no need to risk it.

Harry bestowed the unimpressed goblin with a quivering smile and dipped his head in a nervous little bow. "Hello, I'm Harry Potter. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with the uh…the goblin in charge?" Silently, he cursed himself, he should have looked into what the head goblin of Gringotts was referred to as _before_ coming here.

The goblin looked down on him with flinty eyes. "What is your purpose here, Mr. Potter?"

"I just wanted to say sorry. I mean-I wanted to apologize, formally apologize for my actions against this establishment, and I wanted to offer any reparations that you would take. Monetary or otherwise."

The goblin glared, expressionless, at Harry long enough for him to begin fidgeting nervously with his fingers, he seriously contemplated turning around and leaving. But then the goblin snorted disdainfully and reached for a translucent, quartz-like stone on the edge of his work station. He flipped it upside down and immediately it began letting off a soft, blue glow.

Harry waited in silence for a second goblin, somewhat rounder than the first with less hair on his head and more on his chin, to appear from one of the many halls and approach. He stepped up to the goblin who had summoned him and listened as the situation was explained to him in the harsh cadence of gobbledegook. When all that could be said was spoken, he turned his attention to Harry.

"You've come to apologize and explain your actions?"

Harry nodded. "I admire this bank and the work it does greatly, I wouldn't have done what I did unless I had no other choice. My companions and I broke into the Lestrange vault and stole the cup because it was one of several objects that kept Voldemort tethered to this earth. If I didn't destroy it, I wouldn't have been able to kill him."

"And the dragon?"

Harry shrugged sheepishly. "We needed a way out."

The goblin's face remained impassive, entirely inscrutable to Harry's untrained eyes. "What you sought from the vault of the Lestranges was not gold or jewels, but an item that helped you bring about the defeat of the dark lord?"

"I took nothing else," Harry swore.

"Then you will pay a fee of one hundred galleons to Gringotts and we will accept you once again into our establishment."

Harry only barely refrained from gaping. One hundred galleons was pocket change when compared to what he held in his vaults. He'd expected to be groveling and begging for far longer before the goblins even began to consider accepting half of his wealth as apology. But who was he to sneer at an unexpected turn of good fortune, especially when thus far his life had been plagued by the opposite?

"Of course," he agreed with an easy nod, "it's the least I can do."

The goblin nodded curtly. "The fee will be drafted from your main vault. Is there anything else we can do for you this evening?"

"Oh, yes. I'd like to visit the Black family vault, I've got a key right here." He fumbled in his pockets for a few moments before producing the heavy vault key.

The goblins granted it a cursory examination before nodding and leading him back to the carts that would take him down to his vault.

The mounds of gold, silver, and bronze that towered in semi-organized heaps throughout the cavernous room were ignored in lieu of the stacked trunks along the walls. They were filled with innumerable books and tapestries and dusty old parchments that were no doubt of great value to the Black family but held very little interest for Harry who sifted through the richly detailed family trees with disinterested haste.

It still took him the better part of an hour to find the texts he was in need of, but find them he did. A full collection of books with multiple different and detailed techniques on how to learn and eventually master Occlumency were shrunk down and tucked into his pocket and Harry, already feeling incredibly accomplished, returned topside.

The bank had grown busier in his time below ground, nearly every teller had a line of at least five wizards or witches patiently waiting their turns. Harry hadn't brought a cloak with him, Voldemort and his cloaked followers were still too fresh of a memory for everyone, so he knew that walking through Diagon Alley in the early summer with a heavy cloak and a hood over his head would draw far more attention than going without one, Boy-Who-Lived or not. So he bowed his head, allowing his slightly longer hair to fall over his forehead and eyes and casually walked across the hall. He was only a few meters away from the exit, a mere dozen or so steps before he could celebrate a successful escape, but then a hand fell on his shoulder, heavy and constricting enough to halt him in his steps.

"Mr. Potter." It was Xenophilius Lovegood of all people, Harry hadn't seen the man since he'd tried to turn him over to the Death Eaters and, quite frankly, he looked awful.

"Mr. Lovegood." Harry tried for a smile, but even to him it felt incredibly insincere. "It's good to see you well."

Xenophilius laughed shortly. "What a lovely lie. Last we met, I tried to hand you over to the dark lord's forces, I'd fear for your mental health if you were happy to see me."

Harry shrugged. "I don't hold it against you. You did it only because the Death Eaters had taken Luna, and the only reason they took her was because you were one of the few brave enough to speak out about your support for me."

A strange look passed over Xenophilius' face, but it was quickly veiled by his long hair when he bowed his head in a thankful nod. "Your understanding means much me, you are a good man. But that's not why I stopped you." The older man paused uncertainly. "Mr. Potter, might I ask you something?"

"Of course." Harry nodded encouragingly. "What is it?"

"There are rumors of what was said the day you killed He-Who-Must-Not-Named." Xenophilius glanced around as his voice dropped below a whisper. "They say you mastered the Elder Wand. Took it from him. And that that was what allowed you to defeat him."

Harry took a step back, immediately on his guard. "I don't have the Elder Wand, only my own."

Xenophilius hastened to smooth his raised hackles. "Well, of course you don't have it on you, such an artifact is too precious to carry with you on an everyday shopping trip. But whether you've simply left it at home or locked it in your vault, you have it, it's yours. You are the master of the Elder Wand. And the cloak."

"Cloak? Sorry, what cloak?"

"You came to my home that day, and asked about the Deathly Hallows, and I told you."

Harry's jaw dropped and he shook his head. "But Hermione….How do you…?"

"How do I remember what we discussed after your lovely friend obliviated me?" Xenophilius raised a wry brow. "I presume from what she tried to take from me, she was not aiming to make me forget the entire conversation, only that your young, redheaded friend was present. From the reports I heard, he was meant to be home sick with spattergroit. But, in her haste, the spell she cast was sloppy, underpowered, easily thwarted by the protections around my home. I did not forget the interest you showed in the Hallows nor did I forget the look you and your friends shared when I told you of Death's own invisibility cloak. You know of it, more than that, you own it."

"This is all some wild conjecture, Mr. Lovegood."

"And yet you've not denied a single word." Xenophilius took a step forward. "Do you have the Resurrection Stone? Did you unite the Hallows?"

"Why?" Harry was floundering, caught completely off guard by the man's fervored interest. "Why does it matter to you?"

"Because, once they've been united, we all will die."

Harry froze, a part of him was waiting for Xenophilius to laugh and claim it was a joke. Or, what was probably more likely, go on to explain some completely eccentric conspiracy theory claiming the rise of a clumdinger army. When such an explanation was not immediately forthcoming, he pressed for a bit of elaboration. "I'm sorry, what?

"The Hallows are objects far too powerful to even put to words. Death would not and did not give them up willingly. We took them and we used them and we abused them."

Harry shook his head as he considered the best way to placate Xenophilius' mad theory. "Those who took the Hallows are long dead, Death has no one to punish."

His words did nothing to soothe Xenophilius, unfortunately. If anything, he seemed even more distressed. "It's not Death who wishes to punish. The object from which the Hallows came was one of neutrality, balance. Those who had them used them for their own selfish purposes tried to cheat Death, they tried to _become_ death, and in doing so, they upset the balance. With the Hallows separated, there is nothing they could do to right the balance, unite them and they once again have the power to right them in the only way they know how."

Harry could see where this was going. "They kill us."

Xenophilius laughed bitterly. "No, not you, you're their master. Only us."

"Mr. Lovegood…."

"You don't believe me. Of course you don't. They won't either, not at first, but when it begins….then they'll see. Then they'll believe."

Harry felt his heart sink, the man was so sure in his fear, there would be no convincing him that he hadn't actually united the Hallows or, even if he had, that their union wouldn't actually bring about the end of days, but he could still appeal for his silence in the only way he knew how. "If you tell them, they'll want to hurt me...I'm-I'm Luna's friend. You know the sort of person she is, if I hurt, she will. You would hurt her?"

Xenophilius shook his head. "No. I would save her." He smiled a small, sad smile as he began to back away. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, it seems we just weren't meant to be on the same side, not when it means putting my Luna at risk. "

Harry raised his wand. Xenophilius was resolute in going to the papers (specifically his own no doubt) to warn all of the wizarding world of their coming demise at Harry's hands, he would not be reasoned with. It was more than likely that these warning would go unheeded, Xenophilius and the Quibbler were notorious for printing outrageous and entirely unbelievable conspiracy theories, but if even one person believed him, that was one too many. He wouldn't risk it. "I can't let you go." His wand aimed at the point just between the man's eyes. "Please don't make me."

"I won't," Xenophilius reassured. Harry frowned in confusion, but then the man was yelling, drawing everyone's attention to the two of them. "It's Harry Potter! It's the Boy-Who-Lived! The Man Who Conquered!"

They were upon them, Harry specifically, in a matter of moments. Dozens of wizards surrounded him, all trying to congratulate him, to thank him, to _touch_ him, and in the ensuing chaos, Xenophilius got away.

* * *

It was an hour before Harry was able to return home. There had been so many who had wanted to see him and speak with him, so many who weren't willing to listen to his feeble attempts at excusing himself or his insistences that he really did have somewhere to be. They only dispersed after each and every person had been granted a chance to shake his hand and personally thank him for saving their world. When he was finally back in the safety of Grimmauld Place, he was tired and irritable and just really wanted to settled down with something warm to eat and begin sorting through his books, but the little luck he'd been seeing earlier that evening had apparently fled and he found himself with guests.

Ron and Hermione had let themselves in sometime during his absence and set themselves up in the main parlor. Harry expressed his surprise at seeing them, but hugged them both in greeting anyway.

"My parents are finally settling back in," Hermione explained as she happily accepted his hug. "They're still a bit angry at me for taking their memories, so I thought it'd be a good idea to give them a bit of space for a week or two."

"I can't stay as long," Ron said, "I'll probably head back home sometime tomorrow. But I needed to get away for a few hours, we're all mourning but sometimes it gets to be too much. Almost suffocating."

"Well, if you've come to distract yourselves from your own terrible woes, you've come to the right place." Harry heaved a dramatic sigh as he flopped onto the nearest armchair. "I had a _day_. Wait, actually, these past few weeks have all been something else."

Hermione leaned forward in her seat. "Oh?"

"Brief summary? I had a conversation with Death and Xenophilius Lovegood is convinced I've brought about the end of days."

"Um, okay no." Ron frowned. "We do _not_ want the brief summary. Tell us everything."

Harry scratched at the back of his head. "It's a long story."

Ron made a point of settling back in his seat. "We've got time."

"Well, okay." Harry sighed again. "The other day, the same one as Fred's funeral, I got smashed and decided I was going to use a dark ritual I'd found to summon the dead." He felt sheepish explaining what he'd done as, now, he knew how much of a monumentally stupid idea that had been. "I just wanted to talk to them and make sure they were happy. But they didn't show up. Instead, a man did, Death."

"Death?" Ron repeated weakly. "Like _Death_ Death?"

Harry nodded.

"Did he look like the stories said? All skeletal and scary?"

Harry shook his head. "No. He was actually kind of fit, a bit older and definitely intimidating, but he looked like a man."

"And what did Death say to you?"

"After comparing me to a bacterium and calling me a great, big coward?" Harry snorted. "He was actually nice enough to explain what the Hallows were to him and what uniting them meant for me."

"What does it mean?"

Harry sobered at that. "A lot, apparently. I'm not his master but his equal, his protégé without the chance of him actually dying and passing his position on to me. That means I don't die, not from old age, not from a killing curse, not even from bad shellfish. Eventually I'll be able to do the things he can, though I'm still not entirely sure what that is. It's actually already started, when I saw Fred that day at Hogwarts and when I nearly went mad because of the voices only I could hear? That was me sensing those who have passed on but haven't crossed over yet."

"Shit," Ron whispered. "Is there nothing you can do? Do you get any say in this?"

Harry smiled sadly. "Not really. Death said I _can_ die, but only if we're both in agreement that my soul should be reaped, and he's still not sure it'll work. The Hallows are a part of me, they've absorbed into my core or something, the only way I can stop being Death's equal is if they're harvested from my soul, and I've been told that it's incredibly painful."

"So, what, you're just going to sit back, eternally young and healthy, while we grow old and drop like flies around you?"

"Well, I have no intention of outliving you, not for long at least. Death has assured me that there won't ever be a time where he won't want to reap my soul, he's an arsehole like that, I figure once you're gone I'll finally give him permission to have at it and cross my fingers that it actually works."

Hermione seemed stricken by this idea. "That's horrible. After everything you've endured…it's so much less than you deserve."

"I know." Harry shrugged. "But I've just about come to terms with the fact that I won't get to live the sort of life I'd really been hoping for. I guess I'll just have to work with the cards I've been dealt."

Ron reached out to squeeze Harry's knee. "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"If you really don't age, we'll have to find some way to make sure you at least look like you do." A contemplative look settled over Hermione's face as she began attempting to find some way past this issue. "The last thing we need is for the wizarding world to become aware of this mess."

"It might be a bit too late for that." Harry snorted ruefully. "Remember how I mentioned Xenophilius thinking I've brought about the end of days?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, what's with that?"

"The Hallows come from an ancient object that was all about balance. Xenophilius believes that the wizards who possessed the Hallows and used them for their own personal gain upset that balance; with them reunited they'll attempt to right the balance by wiping out the wizarding world. He's declared it his personal mission to warn the wizarding world of their coming demise. I have a feeling he's drafting an article for the Quibbler as we speak."

"How does he even know you've united the Hallows?" Ron asked. "He shouldn't even know you were interested in them. Hermione obliviated him, didn't she?"

"Yeah, but according to him the charm was hastily cast, weak enough for his wards to stop it. I guess he took what I said to Voldemort during the final battle about my being the master of the Elder Wand, and added it to what we talked about that day and came to his own conclusions."

Hermione looked appalled with herself. " _Fuck_."

A bubble of surprised laughter burst from Harry at the sound of the expletive leaving his friend's lips. "Don't worry about it, Hermione, I don't blame you. We all did the best we could in that situation."

"You seem awfully calm," Ron observed.

Harry shrugged. "I tried reasoning with him, tried to convince him the Hallows would do no one harm, then not to tell anyone, but he won't be swayed. I have a feeling he's going to use the Quibbler to spread the news, but they've never exactly been a reputable source."

"Not before the war, no," Hermione pointed out, "but during, when Voldemort had taken control of the Daily Prophet, the Quibbler was one of the only reliable sources of news. People subscribed and they listened to what he had to say. Now that the Daily Prophet is back up and running he likely has less followers, but he still has them and they still listen. It may not be a lot, but it'll be more than enough to cause you trouble."

"Then we go and stop him from writing that article." Ron declared this as if it were the most obvious solution in the world. "Ginny said he and Luna have been staying at the Leaky Cauldron since their home was pretty badly messed up. We'll go up there and give him a talking to. And if he doesn't want to be reasoned with, then Hermione can obliviate him. Only this time, try and do it right, yeah?"

Hermione gaped, clearly affronted. "That is a terrible thing to say."

Ron frowned in confusion. "What? My suggestion that we obliviate the man for a second time or that the only reason we have to is because you couldn't get it right the first time?"

Hermione scowled and very pointedly didn't answer.

Harry smiled, feeling lighter now that he had a potential solution to this newest set of challenges. "All right, let's go. Let's do it."

* * *

After spending a few minutes hashing out who would say what to Xenophilius, Harry, Ron, and Hermione apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. However, the moment they landed, they were met with a surprising amount of chaos; Aurors were swarming the place, searching every nook and cranny while wizards in strange, navy blue robes stood along the edges of the room, specifically near the exits and entrances as they muttered obscurely. The moment the Aurors caught sight of the trio, they were herded out into Diagon Alley where a large group of patrons was already gathered. At the forefront was a supremely unconcerned looking Luna.

Harry made sure to shield his face and, subsequently, his scar as he moved to stand beside Luna and question her on what was happening.

Luna smiled excitedly up at him. "A muggle came into the Leaky Cauldron." She was near bouncing on her toes in excitement. "Just walked right in. And no one even noticed until she began making a fuss about two hags who had gotten into a duel because they found out they were dating the same ogre."

Ron's jaw dropped. "Really?"

"Yes." Luna nodded. "It's terrible isn't it? You would think they'd realize they were dating the same man. Perhaps he didn't know? They did look very similar."

"Not the hags, Luna, the muggle. How did she even get in? The wards are meant to keep them from realizing this place even exists."

"I reckon it has something to do with the way the wards are beginning to fail. They're not as strong as they once were."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all looked to Luna sharply, unsure if this was another of her wild tales or if there was actually a basis of fact to what she was saying.

"Surely you've noticed it by now?" Silvery eyes looked between the three friends quizzically. "The magics we've cast to keep us safe is dying, they won't keep us hidden for long."

Harry felt something uncertain and just a little bit worried settle in his stomach, this was too much of a coincidence. "Luna, what do you know?"

"More than a bit, Harry. I wasn't in Ravenclaw for nothing."

Luna didn't even flinch when Harry gripped her wrist and dragged her further into the Alley, away from the crowd, Ron and Hermione followed uncertainly. "Luna, you know what's happened to me, you know what I've become. Did you tell your father about it? Any of it?"

Luna frowned. "Of course not. That's your secret to keep."

"Yeah, well today he cornered me in Gringotts, certain that I had united the Hallows, he said that bringing the Hallows together would destroy our world and now here you are telling me that the magic that's been set to protect us is dying. What do you know?"

"You're hurting me, Harry."

He immediately released his grip on her wrist, but he didn't retreat an inch. " _Please_."

"Daddy's always been obsessed with the Deathly Hallows," she admitted. "His parents told him stories of them, though in those stories they were only the Heart, not the Hallows. It was a story that was passed on from generations. He told me of it only a few years after Mummy died, he told me about how once the Heart was whole again we would all die. Our magic would fail us and the wizarding world would find its end. It frightened me terribly so he never told me again, but I never forgot."

Harry's hands felt as if they wanted to begin trembling, so he tucked them beneath his arms. "Do you think the stories were true?"

Luna looked pointedly to where the Aurors and the blue robed wizards had moved to investigate the outside of the pub.

"Is there any way to stop it?"

Luna smiled, sad but not at all afraid. "No, there's nothing you can do. I know it's hard to accept, you who were born to be a hero, but we are finished, our end is inevitable."

* * *

Harry left Luna, Hermione, and Ron to watch as the source of the Leaky Cauldron's breach was searched for. Luna's words had left a tight band of worry around his chest, but he refused to allow himself to begin actively fearing for his friends' fate until it was confirmed by the only source he could trust. First he apparated to Grimmauld Place to collect a few leftovers from several weeks ago, then he apparated to a place he'd intended to never return to again.

Privet Drive was still empty, wherever the Dursleys had been moved they must have liked it quite a bit as they had yet to return. Or maybe they had been forgotten about and were still huddled in some drafty hovel fearfully waiting for Voldemort to track them down and murder them for sharing blood with his greatest enemy.

Either way, he didn't care.

He took great pleasure in placing his wreath of asphodel, henbane, and ash wood atop of one Petunia's prized dinner platter and setting the whole thing alight, no doubt irreparably damaging the china. He used one of the pristinely kept steak knives to cut into the flesh of his palm and allowed his blood to mix with the flames.

"Again with the sticks and the flowers. I thought after our last conversation you would have learned, but it seems not. That is most disappointing."

Harry glared coldly at Death. "Whether it has your oh so revered mark of approval or not is no concern to me, it worked in bringing you here and that's all that I care about."

Death snorted inelegantly, he waved his hand and extinguished his fire and then, just to spite him, returned the plate to its once pristine condition. Harry responded by shattering the fine china across the linoleum.

"Well, we are in a mood today, aren't we? What has you in such a snit, little quark?"

"The Heart, does it intend to destroy the wizarding world?"

A slow look of amused realization hijacked Death's features. "This upsets you."

Harry felt something deep within him shatter, he hadn't spoken the words he'd been seeking, but Death's reaction was confirmation enough. "Yes, this upsets me," he hissed. "Those are my people, my family, and you failed to tell me that they would all be dying because of me."

Death didn't even have the grace to look ashamed or repentant. "Lives on earth are so fleeting, entire races and species die out only to be replaced by another in a single day. I confess to having forgotten about their coming extinction."

Harry flinched at his blasé words. "But it can be stopped, yeah? If you harvest the Heart from my soul, would it save them?"

"No, the Heart has been united, it is whole again and it must restore its balance."

"Those are good people," Harry protested. "They've done nothing wrong."

"The Heart makes no distinction between those who used it to do wrong and those who exist now. It was magic that has upset the balance so magic must right it."

Harry wilted, his people would die because of him and, according to Death, nothing, not even the power he was to be granted could stop it. "How long do they have? How long until they're all dead?"

"Oh, it will not be immediate. They will have a century, two if they're careful. But they will no longer grow, no longer thrive, their death will be a slow one." Death idly paced the length of the kitchen, running thin fingers along the lurid, floral studded wallpaper. "The magics that have kept them hidden for so long will fail, it has already begun; those who they wished to keep their existence hidden from will become aware of their lurking presence. They will be frightened of these strange new people, they will want to try to control them, want to regulate their powers. Of course your people will not stand for such a thing. And so there will be war. As it wages, pestilence will strike. Sickness will spread killing the weak and rendering many unable to bear children to continue their lines. The disease will shut down butchers, bakeries, markets, they'll have to venture into the world they are at war with or famine will take them." Death seemed spellbound, almost reverent by this point. "Only when they are weakened, suffering, and unable to reproduce, _only then_ when my Heart feels as if they have paid their due, will I, Death, take them as my own." Death bestowed Harry a smile, both pitying and terrifying. "And then they will be gone, as if they had never existed. The era of magic is ended."


	3. Chapter 3

There was an article in The Quibbler the very next morning. It bore an arresting headline written in big, bold letters and was accompanied by a menacing looking photo of Harry; the same photo, he realized, that had been used on his Undesirable No. 1 posters. The article itself was pretty much what Harry had expected (though it was wildly different from the few articles he had seen in The Quibbler back when he was still in Hogwarts) it revealed Harry's status as 'Master of Death' and carefully listed all that Xenophilius knew about Harry and his quest for the Hallows. There wasn't much, honestly, but what little he had was damning. The article then went on to explain how and why the Hallows meant the end of them all. Or, at least, all but Harry. It was clear and well written, completely devoid of Xenophilius' mad ravings; even if didn't immediately succeed in convincing those who read it of the wizarding world's fall, it would eventually and it would bring trouble right to Harry's front door.

"So we're back to this," Ron noted angrily as he tossed The Quibbler aside with a sneer of disgust, "having your name slandered in the papers."

"Xenophilius was actually pretty good about not slandering my name," Harry pointed out. "He didn't blame any of this on my greed or my hunger for power as the Prophet would have. But it was inevitable that I would come off looking like the bad guy, the wizarding world is dying because of me."

"It's not because of you," Hermione snapped. "If you hadn't united the Hallows someone else would have eventually and this same thing would be happening then. So quit trying to beat yourself about it, we need you focused."

"Focused on what?"

"Finding some way to stop this." Harry had returned to Grimmauld Place after his discussion with Death the previous night and grimly informed his two friends that all that Luna had said was true, they were coasting towards extinction and the brakes had been cut. There'd been horror and more than a small bit of fear, but then Hermione had declared his lamentations of hopelessness as bullshit and locked herself in the library for the rest of the night. When Harry had shuffled down to the kitchen after a night of fitful sleeping, she was already up and poring over a large book while she sipped at a mug of tea. Seeing her so calm and assured allowed the smallest bit of hope to nip at Harry, if anyone could prove Death himself wrong, it would be Hermione.

"Have you found anything?"

"No, not to stop it." Hermione spared Harry a quick glance while she turned to the next page in her book. "But there is a way we can prevent this whole mess from happening. It'll be just like third year."

Just like third year? It took only a second for Harry to process the statement, his jaw dropped. "You want to go back in time?"

Hermione nodded. "If we can go back to before the war ended and stop you from uniting the Hallows, maybe even find some way to destroy them, then this whole mess would be stopped before it could even start."

"But how would we go back?" Ron wondered. "All of the time turners were destroyed our fifth year, and even if they weren't, they only go back a few hours, right? Not the weeks and months we'd need."

"You're right," Hermione smiled at her boyfriend approvingly. "But we won't be using a time turner." She tapped the spine of her book. "There is a ritual, it's old and powerful and probably really, really dangerous, but it can send us as far back as we need."

"How dangerous."

"If done wrong, best case scenario you're displaced in time, worst case scenario your magic is drained and you die."

"Then we'll just have to make sure we do it right. What do you know about this ritual?"

"Other than that it's incredibly high risk? It's not like time turner travel, when you go back, you replace the you that exists, they're gone so you have to live from that point on. There's no traveling back, we'll have to relive every moment."

Ron didn't seem at all upset by this. "That's a small price to pay. How far back do you intend to send us?"

"I was thinking Christmas of last year," Hermione suggested. "That was only a few days before we made the mistake of visiting Xenophilius."

Harry hummed contemplatively. "At that point I had both the stone and the cloak, but I hadn't actually physically touched the stone and the wand was still with Voldemort. I like it, we should do it. What will it take?"

Hermione sighed heavily. "A lot. The ingredients we need are obscure, I'm not even sure where we can find some of these things, and they're bound to be incredibly expensive. Not to mention it needs to be done in a specific order at a specific time of the year."

"When?"

"Mid-November, I think." Hermione consulted her book. "It has something to do with moon magics and such, that specific time of the year is when the spell will be most effective. If we have everything we need when the time comes around, actually performing the ritual won't be all that hard. It requires a basic knowledge of runes and a fair bit of magic, but it can be done."

What Hermione was saying was all good news, but something about her delivery indicated that there was more to what she was saying. Ron seemed to sense it too as he immediately pressed her to go on. "But…?"

"But," Hermione sighed, "all three of us won't be able to go back. One of us will have to remain behind to perform the ritual."

"And you think it should be you," Harry guessed.

"Well, yes actually. Of the three of us, I would be the easiest to convince that the two of you were from the future, I've dealt with this sort of thing before. Not to mention, I'm the only on with experience in ancient runes, I should be the one to perform the ritual."

"What will happen to you when we change the past?" Ron frowned. "Will you remember what we've done or will you just be gone?"

Hermione shrugged. "I honestly don't know. But no matter which way it goes, you'll still have me. It'd be a slightly different version is all."

"It's the best option we have," Harry was speaking directly to Ron, who didn't seem entirely convinced. "I think we should do it."

"It's risky."

"But it's worth it. Think all of the people we'll save, not just those who will die, but those we already have."

Realization slowly dawned. "Fred?"

Harry nodded. "And Remus and Tonks and anyone else that we can save."

Ron still looked uncertain but his jaw no longer held that stubborn set that signified that he was completely against the idea. "What are we waiting for then? Let's get started."

* * *

Hermione had said that some of the ingredients would be obscure, that, in any ordinary situation, the items they were in need of would be near impossible to get their hands, but of course neither Harry nor Ron had really paid much mind to her warning until they saw the actual list of ingredients.

Most of it was easy enough, basic supplies that could be found at just about any apothecary; feathers of a diricawl, dried forsythia petals, the liver of a tawny eagle, the root of an Angel's Trumpet soaked in the brine of the Dead Sea. But then there were a handful of ingredients that _weren't_ so simple.

"Unicorn blood _willingly given_ ," Ron read incredulously, "the skull of a girtablilu, _the fingerprint of the gods._ The hell does that even mean?"

"Unicorn blood actually shouldn't be that big of a problem for us," Hermione soothed, having already gotten over how difficult it would be to procure those final objects. "Hagrid has quite the way with unicorns, I'm sure he'll be willing to give us a hand with that. The latter two are what may give us some issues."

"Well, yeah," Harry agreed cynically. "The skull of gerty-whatever and a god's fingerprints? What's a gerty-thing and how do we get a god's fingerprint?"

"A _girtablilu_ is a sort of man, scorpion hybrid," Hermione explained, "they're ancient creatures, I don't even know if they still exist or where we could find their remains. The fingerprint of the gods is just a fancy way of saying fulgurite, sand that's been crystalized by a lightning strike. Our only problem is the amount and quality of fulgurite that will be needed to perform the ritual will be expensive. _Really_ expensive."

"But you know where to find it, yeah?" Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head. "Not specifically, but I know that if I looked I'll eventually find _somewhere_ that sells it."

"Then don't worry about it. Our main focus right now needs to be figuring out where we can find that girtablilu."

"I did a bit of research on them last night, they supposedly originate from the Mesopotamic region, but," Hermione shrugged, "it doesn't get more specific than that."

"If these creatures really do or did exist, an apothecary in that region might have something," Ron suggested. "And even if they don't, maybe they could point us in the right direction."

Hermione nodded. "I'll look into it a bit more, see if I can't find something a little more specific."

Harry granted Hermione a reassuring smile. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. You said the ritual had to be performed mid-November? That's six months from now."

"In the meantime, I'll get started on getting the rest of these," Ron waved the list of ingredients about, "I should be able to find most of what we need in Diagon Alley. And Harry will…Harry what _will_ you be doing?"

"I've got some research of my own to do," Harry nodded toward the Occlumency texts stacked on the counter. "I've got six months to keep whatever abilities may come under control, then I'll be free of them."

"All right." Hermione nodded decisively. "We've all got our tasks. Let's hop to it."

* * *

There was a wizard enclave, a small but prosperous farming community just within the border of England. Within it were only a few hundred wizards, witches, and their families, but with a little help from their magic, they were able to provide farmed goods, meats, dairies, fresh vegetables, to nearly every wizarding establishment and quite a few homes in the United Kingdom.

They were a peaceful people, if not a bit introverted. None of their children attended Hogwarts, choosing to be taught within their small community, and none of them played any part in the war, choosing to remain neutral in regards to that particular conflict. Most of the population of wizarding Britain didn't realize the importance of these people, they kept a portion of the European wizarding world fed and happy and thriving. But then, one evening in the middle of the month of May, only weeks after the defeat of the dark lord Voldemort, they were attacked. They were _destroyed_.

It started in the dead of the night with a shiver, then a quake, then a fall. Their wards fell with absolutely no warning before or after, the wizards within had no reason to believe they were no longer safe behind the privacy of their wards until the muggles began showing up, curious as to what this strange place was, this community that had most certainly not been there the previous day.

They were only curious at first, if not confused, they didn't wish to do any harm, only to find some answers. But the members of the wizard community were taken off guard and just the slightest bit frightened, they attempted to use their magic to drive the intruders away and for a short period of time, it worked, but then they returned with more. More people and more guns and things turned violent.

There were less than one hundred muggles in comparison to the two hundred wizards, but the muggles were armed with weapons that could fire and kill five wizards in the time it took to cast one spell. They didn't fight for long only because they didn't survive for long. When the Aurors finally arrived only three wizards, all gravely injured, and twelve muggles remained.

The acting Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, oversaw the interment of the dozen muggles into the Ministry's temporary holding cells with a disbelieving horror.

"This is the second incident this week." His tone belied his overwhelming concern. "What is the cause of this?"

A navy adorned Unspeakable immediately stepped forward to answer the Minister. "Since the breach in the Leaky Cauldron, we've been tracking the strength of wards across the region, from what we've seen so far, their strength have dramatically decreased. The larger the area cloaked in wards, the more dramatic the decrease. Establishments such as Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, St. Mungo's, Diagon Alley are seeing the worst of it."

"But why?" Kingsley pressed. "What is causing the wards to fail? And why are the wards around some falling altogether while the wards around Hogwarts and the like remain?"

"We believe it's due to the strength of the wards. The protections surrounding the enclave were weak and hadn't been renewed in years, whereas those around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are restored every month. As for why this is happening," the Unspeakable shook her head, "we've yet to pinpoint the source."

"All right," Kingsley sighed, "well keep working on that. Meanwhile, I've got to deal with this mess."

"Reporters from the Prophet were already on the scene when we left," Gawain Robards, the new head auror stepped in, "a few followed us and the muggles here so we can expect the mob to be on our doorstep no later than this evening. They'll want blood."

"More than enough has been spilled already. I've already arranged a meeting with the muggle prime minister, I'll be heading that way once the muggles are settled in. I'm hoping we can at least begin sorting this out before the news is released to the masses."

"Go on then," Robards urged. "I'll keep an eye on them, they're no longer much of a danger to us."

Kingsley sighed again, not at all looking forward to the coming meeting, he was eager to just get it out of the way already. "I'll leave them under your capable supervision then." He clasped Robards on the shoulder then turned to leave.

When he stepped through the floo, the prime minister was already waiting for him, seated comfortably behind his desk with an expression of deep weariness that matched Kingsley's own exactly.

"What a mess this is, isn't?" the man lamented, startling a rueful laugh from Kingsley.

"That it is," he agreed as he settled in the seat across from him. "One that I wish to sort out as quickly and quietly as possible."

"Quickly I can do," the prime minister nodded, "however, I'm not sure about quietly. I don't know how I can cover this one up, eighty-nine of my men were killed."

"Two hundred and thirty seven of mine were, children included. And all because your men were a little spooked."

"And don't you think they had a right to be? After all those unexplained killings."

"Unexplained killings that have ended and been ended for nearly a month now," Kingsley interjected testily. "And whether they had a reason to be spooked or not, that does not justify their attack on my people."

"What would you have me do? They can't be punished, not without revealing your existence to them and others."

"I don't know," Kingsley growled in frustration. "But I can't just let them walk, not unless I wish to have a riot on my hands."

"Surely if you explain it was only an accident, one performed out of fear and a belief that they were defending themselves," the prime minister implored.

Kingsley shook his head. "It won't be had. Those who were killed were _important_ , they provided a large portion of our food, this will have a far reaching impact on our world, one that cannot be so easily forgiven."

"Then perhaps a trade? We, the muggle world, will provide your people meats, dairy, crops and whatever else was lost in the attack for as long as is needed, but only if our men are returned whole and healthy."

Kingsley took a long moment to consider the proposal, it would not completely quell the outrage that would spark when the wizarding world was informed of the massacre, but it would do well to dampen it if only slightly. "Their memories would have to be altered," he countered. "Looters killed your men, a posse of young gang members strung out on drugs went from farm to farm and killed those people."

"That's a lot of damage done by one group of kids," the prime minister pointed out.

"Change it around as much as you like, just make it work." Kingsley rose to his feet. "I'll return in a few hours with a proper agreement worked out."

With that, he stepped into the fire and disappeared once again.

* * *

The article detailing the attack on the farming enclave was released that evening, just as Robards predicted, and it shook the wizarding world to its core. They had only just rid themselves of Voldemort and already they were dealing with a new threat. Only this threat had always been there, surrounding them, outnumbering them one to one hundred million. They'd lulled themselves into believing that they were protected from this threat, their wards were supposed to keep them safe, but they were falling and people had died because of it.

But if the Daily Prophet article had been bad, the Quibbler was worse because they had predicted this, they had said that Harry and the Hallows would be the end of them, and it would start with their magic failing. But no one had listened, or at least not enough people had listened, assuming Xenophilius was back to his usual mad ravings now that the war had passed. Xenophilius had nothing new to say, he had poured every bit of proof into his last article, so he reprinted it, and this time, people listened.

"I think maybe we should leave," Ron suggested the night the article was rereleased. "The three of us and all of our family. Just until November when we can get this all sorted out."

Hermione looked up from her reading to fix Ron with a contemplative frown. "You want to leave? And go where?"

Ron shrugged. "Somewhere far from here. Far from muggles. If the wards around this place falls, people will notice, there's never been a Number Thirteen and they know it. Same goes for the Burrow. And even if the muggles don't get us, the wizarding world certainly will. If any more wizards are attacked, and I have a feeling they will be, people will really start listening to Lovegood, they'll want to bring Harry in and they'll come for my family to find him. That's a lot of enemies, our best bet would be to, ah… _tactically retreat_."

"Where?" Hermione repeated.

"I have a few properties," Harry spoke up. "The Potters have a home somewhere in Scotland, far from both wizards and muggles. Its location has always been a pretty big secret, I don't think even the Ministry knows where it is."

"Your parents are muggles, Hermione, so they'd be all right if they decided they didn't want to move again. My family might be a bit harder to convince, Dad's got work, Ginny has school in the fall, Bill has the cottage, but I think they'll come around once things start getting worse."

"If," Hermione corrected firmly. "Things only _might_ get worse. The Prophet said that Kingsley has already been working with the muggle Prime Minister to address this issue and make sure it never happens again. It seems as if he has everything well in hand."

* * *

Things _were not_ well in hand. Three days after their imprisonment, only hours before their memory was to be wiped and they were to be set free, the twelve muggles who had survived the massacre were found dead in their cells. They showed no sign of poisoning nor did any of them have any sort of injuries, which led those who were investigating the deaths to believe that they had each found themselves to the recipient of a killing curse.

The muggle prime minister was furious, he had upheld his end of the bargain, he'd pinned the slew of deaths in the countryside on a fanatic cult and he had sent his first shipment of perishable goods to all the right people only just that morning. And all he had asked in return was the safe return of his men. He demanded answers, he wanted to see those responsible punished, but Kingsley had nothing to offer him, he too had been blindsided by the murders. And so, until he could provide the prime minister with some proof that the situation was being handled, their deal was off.

In the wake of this newest complication, it took no effort at all to persuade Ron's family to take some time off of work to spend a few months away from the wizarding world. They were just as eager to be away from the growing danger in their world as Harry, Ron, and Hermione were, even if it meant putting their careers on hold. Mrs. Weasley was especially pleased with the idea, she loved the Burrow, nowhere else could be home, but it held so many painful memories, it would do her and her family well to get away for a while.

The morning of their departure, everyone gathered in the Burrow to ensure last minute details were in order and to share one more meal around the well-worn table for what was sure to be a long while. It was loud and hectic, but there was a palpable air of excitement throughout the entire house. Their reason for leaving to the country certainly wasn't the greatest; fleeing ones homes to escape the angry mob sure to descend upon them at any given time would leave a bitter taste in anyone's mouth, but their place of refuge was to be one of the Potter family's more resplendent manors located in the secluded highlands. With all of the amenities the manor was sure to boast, they would be hard pressed not to view their temporary stay as a vacation of sorts. One that they had most certainly earned.

"Good morning, Harry." Mrs. Weasley reached out to run a gentle hand across his cheek when Harry entered the kitchen she'd been working away in and leaned against the counter beside her. "Decide to take a break from the madness?"

"I don't want to be in the way of Fleur and Ron and they're numerous trunks. I don't have much so it didn't take long to give it one last check. Do you need any help in here?"

"I've just about finished actually. But if you don't mind, could you go and find Ginny for me? Knowing that girl she's probably still asleep."

Ginny's room was only one floor up from the ground level, but the tossing about of trunks and bickering voices couldn't be heard once he climbed the staircase. No doubt through the use of a handy charm. In the ensuing quiet, Harry could hear the absolute silence coming from Ginny's room and could only find himself agreeing with Mr. Weasleys assumption, in all the years he'd known her, he'd come to know that Ginny _was_ a late riser.

"Hey, Gin. Your mum's got breakfast that'll be gone quicker than you can breathe if you don't hurry and grab some now."

With his head leaning against the wall, ear fairly close to the space between the frame and door, Harry was just able to catch the creak of a dried out throat attempting to speak.

"Ginny? Are you awake?"

There was nothing this time, the noise, faint as it had been before, had now fallen completely silent.

"I'm coming in, okay?"

The first thing Harry noted when he entered Ginny's room, was that it was stiflingly hot. Both the windows and the door had been shut, preventing the proper circulation of air and trapping the body heat Ginny was letting off. And she was letting it off in _waves._ Her thick comforter had been thrown to the floor, discarded in a sad little heap at the foot of her bed, while she remained tangled in her sheets, the thin fabric of which clung to her sweat soaked skin. At first glance she looked asleep, but when Harry approached and crouched beside her bed, a thin line of white between her barely open eyelids became visible.

"Gin?"

And there was the noise again, a pitiful groan of exhaustion and discomfort, forcing its way from Ginny's chest.

"Merlin, you're burning. But you were fine last night." Harry gently tucked a strand of red hair behind his friend's ear, the only form of comfort he could relay in that moment. "All right, I'm going to get your mum, she should have something in her potions cabinet to help."

Ginny murmured something he couldn't understand, but the trembling hands she brought up to weakly pat at his own conveyed her thanks just as well.

"Did you manage to rouse the beast, for me?" Mrs. Weasley smiled when Harry came bounding down the stairs.

He shook his head, a concerned frowned taking over his face. "I couldn't get her out of bed, she's sick, I think. Running a high fever."

Mrs. Weasley set aside the pot she'd been transferring to the table, her brow furrowed in concern. "A fever? How can you tell?"

"I could feel it, once I walked into her room."

"Oh dear, she must have caught something from Diagon yesterday. I told her that little sandwich shop she likes is just no good. Let me gather a few things."

Several potions were gathered from a cabinet above the sink and a handful of herbs tossed into the kettle before Mrs. Weasley followed Harry up to the second floor. Ginny had managed to prop herself up on a few pillows in his absence as well as arrange the sheets around her legs a little neater than they had been earlier, but now that she sat a little straighter, the dark growths ringed in an inflamed purple that clung to her neck and disappeared beneath the neckline of her shirt became painfully obvious.

"Oh dear." Mrs. Weasley set the potions to the side and used her wand to cast a bubblehead charm over both herself and Harry.

"What is it?" Harry asked, words the slightest bit distorted due to the charm.

"The growths along her neck, it's not just a fever she has, but scrofungulus."

"That's a wizarding disease, right? Is it dangerous?"

"It won't kill her, fatal cases of scrofungulus are rare. But she'll need to be taken to St. Mungo's if she's to be treated properly, we'll have to put our plans on hold for the moment."

"Seeing her well is more important. Besides, the manor isn't going anywhere and things have been pretty quiet as of late, we shouldn't be in any danger if we hold off on our retreat for a few more weeks."

When the others were informed of Ginny's sudden illness, they all wanted to sit with her and offer whatever comfort they could, but due to the contagious nature of the sickness, they were firmly told to keep their distance by Mrs. Weasley. Harry, who had already been exposed to the virus was the only one allowed to remain with Ginny, offering his companionship and distractions in the form of stories of when Dudley had been sick as a child. And it was him who carried her through the floo, with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley just a few steps behind her.

The healers took one look at the boils that had begun creeping up Ginny's throat and across her chin, before encapsulating their entire group in some modified version of a bubble charm and herding them up to the second floor. They were taken to their own room, private from any other patients in the ward and Harry was finally able to set Ginny down (she really was quite heavy) on a small cot.

A healer was at her side immediately, casting a diagnostic over her while simultaneously looking her over from top to toe with her own two eyes. "Mark this down as one more scrofungulus case," the healer ordered one of the two medi-wizards observing the procedure before turning to Harry and the two Weasley's. "When did she begin showing symptoms?"

"Sometime in the night, I would think. She went to sleep fine, but when Harry went to wake her this morning she was already sporting the growths." Mrs. Weasley wrung her hands worriedly. "Is there something else wrong with her? It doesn't usually come on this quickly, does it?"

"Not normally, but we've seen a few cases of quick onset scrofungulus these past few days, it may be a new strain. Any idea where she may have caught it?"

"She visited Diagon Alley with a few friends yesterday afternoon, it could have been from anyone there."

"Medi-wizard Prudence will take the name of those friends if you have them. He'll then have a few forms for you to fill out. Were bubble-head charms worn throughout the duration or, at least, the majority of your time with her?"

Mrs. Weasley nodded.

"Did any of you have physical contact with her?"

Harry stepped forward. "I did, before I knew what it was she had."

"I'm afraid that means you're ours for the next twenty-four hours. We'll need to keep you quarantined to make sure whatever you may have caught from her doesn't get passed on to others."

"You said this isn't your first case of scrofungulus this week," Mr. Weasley spoke up. "But it's not usually so commonly occurring. Should we be worried?"

"No. At the moment there is no cause for concern." The healer tucked away her wand, done examining Ginny. "You said she was at Diagon Alley yesterday, such places are where one is most likely to pick up any sort of sickness, especially one as contagious as this."

"And how quickly it set in?"

"We see mutated viruses and new strains of sickness all of the time. So far it has shown no sign of being any more fatal than the previous strain."

"But it must be more aggressive if the symptoms have begun showing much sooner than usual."

The healer shrugged. "Or perhaps it just has a shorter lifespan now. But it is not our job to research the disease, only ensure your daughter is well treated for it. Now, if you don't mind getting those names to Prudence. And we'll need a bit more information from you sir, once we have you settled in a room of your own."

The last thing Harry wanted was to be stuck in quarantine for the next twenty-four hours, not when he had far better things he could be doing, but the healer allowed him no option. She guided him into a separate room with the skill of a woman used to dealing with stubborn patients and set him up with a clipboard and quill to fill out his personal information. Mrs. And Mr. Weasley paid him one last visit with an update on Ginny before they returned home, she was still having trouble remaining conscious for more than a few minutes at a time, but the healers were already plying her with the necessary potions and salves to see her better.

"It shouldn't be more than a week before the worst of it has passed," Mr. Weasley explained. "Once she's no longer contagious we can take her home, you'll be out of here by then and we can be on our way."

A week's postponement wasn't much of a setback, the muggles had been quiet and with those responsible for the farm town's massacre dead the wizarding world had settled down if only slightly and focused their energy on finding some way to rebuild their food stores rather than fruitless attempts at revenge. They could wait a week.

But then it passed, a full seven days, and Ginny wasn't better. Harry had been released after twenty-four hours, miraculously having avoided catching the illness in the short time he'd spent exposed to Ginny, he returned to the Burrow where the rest of the Weasleys remained gathered, waiting for the news that the treatments were beginning to take effect. But the news never came, she got _worse._ The pustules spread across her entire body, covering every patch of skin with painful blisters that burst when they grew too swollen and excreted a foul smelling pus that seemed to burn at what little skin of hers hadn't been covered by the boils.

All of the cases that had come before hers and the multiple more that had come after were just as awful, the healers cited them as being far more aggressive than any strain they had seen before. And it was incredibly contagious, of the five friends Ginny had been with when she'd likely been exposed to the virus, four of them had fallen ill with is a well. An entire corridor of the magical bugs floor had been taken up by those suffering from scrofungulus and another one was being cleared to prepare for the continued influx of infected.

"This is it, he said this would happen." Harry set aside his copy of the Prophet. The front page bore an article pondering over this curious spread of this magical bug. It was worded with concern, but no one had yet died from it so fear had not yet set in. He knew it would only be a matter of time. "The Ministry is doing their best to keep it quiet, but we're already beginning to see the start of another war, we're already beginning to see the effects of famine, and now this, now pestilence."

A heavy look was exchanged between Ron and Hermione, one that they assumed he couldn't see because of the way his gaze still lingered on the Prophet even though he really could.

"How do you know?" Hermione spoke softly, gently, as if afraid of spooking him.

"I can sense it."

"Sense it how? What does it feel like? How do you _know?_ "

And for a moment, Harry had no answer. There were no words that could wholly encompass the magnitude of what Death and his Heart had done to him. "If I was born without sight, how would you describe its existence to me?" His head tilted curiously to the side as he waited for a response, when it was evident there would be none, he answered for his two friends. "You couldn't. There is no way to describe it, explain it. It just…is. I can't tell you how I know, I just do, the same way that you can look at this horrible bedspread and tell me that it's orange. People are going to die, a lot of people."

Hermione's hand trembled when she reached out to place it atop his knee. Harry's was steady when he allowed his fingers to trace along her knuckles before twining them together. "We have a way to stop it."

"We haven't touched the ritual since we got here. We don't know how to perform it and we don't have the items necessary to perform it."

"We will though; we'll learn how to perform it and we'll find everything we need to perform it."

Harry smiled, unable to do anything else when Ron was so confident in himself and the words he spoke. He wished desperately for a bit of that confidence for himself, because now, when Ginny's life was quite possibly on the line, he couldn't afford not to be.

"And you're wrong for that matter about us not having worked at all on the ritual since we arrived here." Hermione's tone had taken on the lofty pitch of the know-it-all schoolgirl he'd once found to be dreadfully grating but now only felt an unparalleled affection for. "I never stopped working on it."

"What have you got for us then?"

"I owled Hagrid about the unicorn blood, he was understandably curious about what we would need it for, but he agreed to collect a vial or two for us."

"Which leaves only the fulgurite and the skull."

"There are places that sell it here in Europe, but it's pricey. As in tens of thousands of galleons."

Harry didn't even flinch. "We have that. So the skull is really all that's left."

Hermione nodded. "I've been in contact with a few vendors in the Mesopotamic region, I'm just waiting on a response now."

"You know, when we first started all this hero-ing, no one told me there would be quite this much waiting." Ron sighed and sprawled out across his bed. "It's not nearly as glamorous as the stories would lead you to believe."

Hermione laughed and reached for a book she'd been perusing in her spare time while Harry settled down on his own cot. "I don't much mind waiting," he mused. "The moments in-between are nice."

There would no doubt be a half-hearted scolding from Mrs. Weasley waiting for them in the morning, she'd never condoned Hermione spending the night in the attic with Ron and Harry but since she and Ron had officially begun their relationship she'd been even more adamant about sticking to boundaries. But Harry knew she didn't like sleeping in the twins' old bedroom, George still slept in his own apartment above the joke shop, but the room still had too much of his and his passed twin's personality's in it for her to truly be comfortable, and Harry was suddenly and inexplicably too tired to care.

He fell asleep to Hermione's soft voice reading aloud for both his and Ron's benefit, expecting dreams of the white ravens and encroaching winters she spoke of and instead falling into something entirely different.

* * *

It was exactly like every Voldemort induced nightmare that had been forced upon him before the dark lord had met his final end. He was in someone else's body, experiencing all that they could but unable to influence any form of movement. He was outside, the sharp fabric and plastic mesh of a dog's lead cutting into his hand while a massive mastiff bounded several yards ahead. This wasn't just a leisurely stroll to enjoy before the late of the night really set in though, Harry, or whoever he was meant to be, his dog, and two others, young men, no older than Harry himself by the look of them, were trudging through the woods, whispering and laughing with each other as they snuck to whatever destination they undoubtedly had no business being at.

"What're we even looking for?" the voice that came from Harry's mouth had a distinctive cadence to it, as if they were somewhere in Wales. Though Harry couldn't for the life of him imagine why his dream would lead him to Wales of all places.

"I told you, I don't know what I saw," one of the others panted as the ground began to incline, "I veered off the trail this morning and saw it taking off with a _sheep_."

"What did it look like, at least?"

"Green and huge….and I think it had wings. It was through here."

The trio broke free from the trees into an expanse of open land nestled between the bases of two low reaching mountains. It was almost entirely barren, not even a lost sheep in sight, and dark, barely lit by the half moon.

"Something doesn't feel right," Harry felt his hijacked body shiver in something deeper than cold. "We shouldn't be here."

"No, I know what you mean," the third member of the group said. "Feels like we forgot something, you cook anything before we left? Accidentally leave the stove going?"

Harry shook his head.

"Then don't worry."

The first friend, the one leading the strange search, began jogging in the direction of the closest mountain. "I saw it by there. But it disappeared around the mountain when I tried to take a closer look."

The three boys and lone dog picked their way across the open field, slipping in the ankle high grass that had been muddied by an earlier rain shower. It took nearly half an hour to reach the first mountain, though it shouldn't have even taken half that in the right conditions. The boys were filthy and exhausted, but their spirits remained unflagged in the face of their childish curiosity as they split up to search the area around the mountain.

"There's bones here!" one of Harry's companions shouted after a little over five minutes of searching. "Picked apart and all bloody, I think it belonged to a sheep."

Harry's meat-suit headed in the direction of the shout, he could just see his two friends bent over the gnawed on remains of some poor animal's bones, but then the dog who had, until then, been happily trotting along at his side, dug his clawed feet into the ground and let out a high pitched sound of primal terror.

"There's something else here. Ellian, come take a look! There's a whole bunch of them."

"Hang on, something's got Alwyn scared." Harry gave a sharp tug to the leash, still wrapped around his hand, but the dog remained put.

"They look like some kind of egg, but I don't know what kind of bird they could belong to. These things are bigger than my head!"

"Alwyn, come on! Bring one here, he won't move."

The two boys tripped over to Harry, one was cradling an egg that truly was the size of his head, if not bigger, in his arms. It was a rich brown interspersed with a deep, earthy green. It was a handsome egg, one that Harry recognized all too well. He had seen a whole cluster of the things surrounding a solitary golden egg of the same size, while its mother fiercely protected the whole bunch from the beautiful french woman who had gone on to marry his best friend's brother.

He wanted to speak, to warn the three idiots and their dog of the danger, but this wasn't his body to pilot, he could only watch as his host did when the dog, Alwyn, screeched on last final yelp of fear before racing off with such speed and force he tore the lead from his hand. And when the boy turned back to his friends confused and preparing to chase after the loosed canine, he saw through eyes that weren't his own as something enormous and straight from his nightmare slunk from around the mountain, blending in frighteningly well despite its size with the lush green landscape. The other two saw it the same time he did, the egg fell from suddenly nerveless fingers and cracked open on one unfortunately placed rock. Thick, slimy liquid and the fetus of a not yet fully developed Welsh Green dragon spilled across the ground.

Its mother roared.

* * *

Harry woke violently, hands clutching at a shoulder that, only moments earlier, he'd felt talons impossibly long and fatally sharp tearing into. He rolled out of bed, panting and struggling to reorient himself. Somewhere above he could hear concerned voices and hands trying to pull him upright, but he shook them off and leaned himself heavily against the wall.

"Ron, get your dad….I need your dad."

"What?"

Harry forced himself to open his eyes as he gulped in heavy breaths. "I need to talk to your dad."

Ron's lips pressed into a tight, worried line, but he nodded and stepped quickly from the room. Hermione reached out as if to touch him, but then reconsidered her action, clearly remembering the last time Harry had been overwhelmed by some force she couldn't understand. He laughed, a tad breathlessly, and reached out to take her hand, finding some comfort in her grounding presence.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Don't worry about me," Hermione snorted. "Is everything all right? What happened?"

"I saw something…in my dream."

"Another attack?"

"Not exactly."

It had to be well past midnight by this point, as evidenced by the sleep heavy glaze over Mr. Weasley's eyes and the wrinkled pajamas he wore, but Ron's father, when he arrived, showed a great amount of concern for Harry's tale and agreed to help him get in contact with those capable of finding out if what he'd seen had really come to pass. Kingsley would be the best person for that, and thanks to the fact that the Weasleys and the acting Minister of Magic were still on close terms, that proved to be much easier than it would be for just about any other wizard. The Burrow's floo network was connected with Kingsley's own and so Harry was able to establish contact with the man almost immediately.

"I had a dream."

Kingsley's entire face darkened. Those four words had grown to be a source of dread for the Order during the war as what succeeded them was rarely ever good news.

"You-Know-Who?"

"No, something else. I don't know how I saw it, but the reserve-the dragon reserve in Wales I think, muggles got into it, three boys."

"You saw them?"

Harry nodded. "It was just like it was with him. I could see it through their eyes, the whole thing. They found a dragon, or rather it found them, and it's furious, I think it's going to kill them if it hasn't already. One of its eggs was broken."

"And you're certain it was real? Not just a dream?"

"I've learned to tell the difference."

Kingsley sat back on his haunches, releasing a heavy sigh. "There are two reserves in Wales, one is much closer to muggle population than the other. Did you-"

Behind Kingsley, a portrait whose frame had previously been empty burst to life, it was a stately looking man whose ridiculously coiffed, powdered wig sat askew on his head. The acting Minister gestured for Harry to wait as he rose from in front of the fireplace to greet the portrait. Words were exchanged and grimaces had before Kingsley returned with news that he would have to end their call as he was needed immediately at the Ministry.

"Is it the dragon?" Harry asked before the call could be ended. "Did it kill them?"

"It didn't just kill them." A tired hand ran over a bald head. "It escaped."

* * *

Fifteen muggles were killed during the dragon's rampage and over thirty others seriously injured. The Welsh Green species wasn't known for being particularly violent, they preferred to keep away from muggles, but her territory had been intruded upon and a hatchling killed, such a crime would send even the most peaceful of creatures into a rage. A rage that was ended only when the mother dragon was put down by the handlers who had cared for her from her hatching.

It was worse than the Ilfracombe Incident had ever been, the Prophet claimed, because the attack didn't occur in just one centralized point, farms and homesteads across the countryside were hit. Too many to properly account for. Perhaps if they had had the full cooperation of the muggle government it would be different, but they had already been on shaky grounds with them since the still unsolved murder of the survivors of the farm massacre, the dragon's violent spree across the country only aggravated the unhealed wound of their relationship. The First Minister of Wales point blank refused to aid in the cleanup of the attack, he would have no hand in concocting another fairy tale to help mask the wizarding world's blunders, not when it had turned out so badly for his counterpart in the United Kingdom. If his people were in danger of being attacked and killed by mythical creatures then they had a right to know. He couldn't outright expose the wizarding world, he'd formed an agreement when first learning of their existence to do no such thing, but it was not his obligation to help account for their mistakes.

The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, more specifically the Obliviator Divison, worked in conjunction with the Auror Corps and the Muggle Worthy-Excuse Committee to cover up the catastrophe with the liberal utilization of memory charms and crafty cover stories. But without the backing of the muggle governments, their cover story was not quite as solid as it could have been and more than a few muggles remained unaccounted for, and so, unobliviated.

Harry was certain that, sometime in the future, those very muggles would be giving them a hell of a lot of trouble.

The indefinable sensation of encroaching death buzzed beneath Harry's skin, he was consistently on knife's edge, waiting for the day where one disaster too many struck and the wizarding world began looking for someone to pin the blame on. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that it would be him, Xenophilius had set him up to be the perfect scapegoat. So he moved on to Potter Manor, Ginny was still sick and growing worse with each day, but Harry couldn't risk his pseudo-family's safety by remaining in the Burrow. Hermione joined him in the manor and while Ron remained at the Burrow to be close to his sister and family, he visited nearly every day to help in preparing for the ritual that would fix everything.

Cut off as they were from the rest of the world, there was very little to distract them from fully devoting themselves to gathering the last of the required ingredients. The fulgurite came first, Harry had to fork over nearly a quarter of the Black family's fortune, but the hunk of fulgurite as long as his forearm was well worth the cost. Unicorn blood, gathered with no trouble by Hagrid arrived via owl post only days later. Third and finally was the skull of the creature whose name Harry _still_ couldn't pronounce, it took the better part of two months communicating back and forth with different vendors in the eastern Mediterranean region before one contact finally pointed them in the right direction. One day trip to Khaitan, Kuwait later and they possessed the skull of the half-man, half-scorpion who would send Harry back in time.

With no more ingredients to gather, all there was left to do was wait. November was the ideal time to perform the ritual, it was then that it would be at its most effective. But November was still four months away, a long time to sit back and watch as the world outside their door burned.

There were no more rampaging dragons or muggle on wizard massacres in the countryside and wizards and witches were continuously charging the wards around their homes and business with an almost religious tenacity, even the slightest falter was dealt with swiftly and efficiently. But the scrofungulus pandemic was growing to be an enormous cause for concern, the virus remained completely undeterred by the treatments that usually worked so well in ridding its host of it and it was still spreading with alarming alacrity. So far three of the original patients had passed from the disease and another two were in critical condition. Ginny continued to doggedly fight not to succumb but with the influx of patients all suffering from the same affliction as her, the healers were no longer able to provide her with the same focus they had been in the early days and it was beginning to reflect on her health. Mrs. Weasley had seriously considered pulling Ginny from the hospital and caring for her herself, it was only the fear of contaminating the rest of her family that stayed her hand.

By the time August rolled around, Mr. Weasley reported that the muggle prime minister and his counterparts had cut all ties with the wizarding world, the alliance the two worlds had held for centuries was well and truly broken. Most wouldn't even give such an occurrence a second thought, but that was because most didn't truly understand how important that alliance had been. It was from the prime minister and his men that the wizarding word received most of its tips on muggles who were getting just a touch to close to cottoning on to their existence. It was their papers that printed articles to explain away strange deaths and unusual occurrences spilling over from the magical world. Without them, speculation on what had really happened in the countryside fostered. Were the twelve men who had mysteriously disappeared and the dozens of others that had been brutally murdered really the work of a group of cultists high on drugs? Had it really been a natural gas leak that had wreaked havoc in southern Wales, seeing several homesteads burned to the ground and countless dead or severely injured?

The Weasley patriarch regretfully relayed the news that those within the Ministry were beginning talk of bringing Harry in for questioning. The Quibbler had not yet ceased publishing articles exposing just what Harry's part in all of this was, and with each disaster that struck their world more people were listening. It was the consensus throughout the entire Ministry that Xenophilius had proven that he had the ability to set aside his mad beliefs and report the real, important news when it was needed, he'd done it for majority of Voldemort's reign (short as it may have been). Who's to say he wasn't telling the truth now? Using his daughter's friendship with Harry and his unique knowledge of the Hallows to see what the other news outlets couldn't? It was best to be safe, bring Harry in, and find out what he knows, what part he plays in all of this, and whether he has the ability to fix it.

It took only one more incident, an incredibly close call with a wizarding family living among muggles, for that talk around the Ministry to be pushed into real action. The wizarding family hadn't been keeping up with their wards quite as strictly as the rest of their peers, they didn't have the funds for it, and as a result the wards failed in the middle of the day and a townhome that had not been there the day previous was suddenly wedged between numbers six and eight Strickfadden Drive. It was only the quick thinking of the mother of the small family and a particularly powerful incendiary charm that saw the entire home, and the two homes on either side of it, burned to the ground and the family free from discovery.

No one had been hurt or killed, but the incident turned out to be the one disaster too many that Harry had been waiting for.

The Ministry reached out to Mr. Weasley first, he and his family were the only ones they knew of that might have continued contact with him. When Mr. Weasley denied having seen or heard from Harry in several weeks the Burrow was raided, searched top to bottom for any sign of him. Of course they found nothing, but the search didn't stop there, they couldn't afford to end it prematurely.

Harry and Hermione were supremely well hidden, so well hidden that they had fooled themselves into believing that the manor was completely untraceable. But those looking for Harry had the backing of the Ministry and they were _desperate_. Kingsley threw every ounce of his considerable clout into stalling the search if not stopping it altogether, but those orchestrating it only went underground with it; they were of the belief that Kingsley was compromised, he was allowing his friendship with Harry to influence his judgment, and so his orders must be ignored, they couldn't afford not to. It took time, time that saw several more dead from the virus and even more in danger from their rapidly declining relationship with the muggle world, but the disasters only saw their resolve to do what they were doing, illegal as it was, strengthened. Countless lives depended on their ability to make the hard decision.

They found what they needed in the Administrative Registration Department through the highly illegal exchange of what was meant to be a secure and private dossier of the Potter family holdings, it was a list of every property and business that had ever belonged to the once well respected family and it was just the thing they needed. The list was long, and the specific locations of each property were not on the list, but, with the finish line so close in reach, those gathered to bring Harry in threw every last resource and connection they had available and they found what they were looking for.

* * *

There was no warning from Kingsley or Mr. Weasley or any of their connections in the Ministry, the night the wizarding world came for Harry he and Hermione were caught utterly off guard.

Ron was away, visiting Ginny and helping his family in whatever way he could, Harry and Hermione were resting in Harry's bedroom, having just finished a meal and decided to spend a quiet evening reading on Hermione's part and doodling on an old sheet of parchment on Harry's. The atmosphere throughout the manor was quiet, content even, which is why the sudden piercing shriek of the wards nearly saw the both of them dead from sudden hear failure. Harry and Hermione were on their feet in an instant and at the closest window, they were half expecting to see the crackling glow of failing wards and a hoard of muggles descending upon the house, but the wards were still intact, their protection had not yet failed. But they wouldn't be able to stand for much longer, because surrounding the property in an unbreakable chain were not muggles but Harry's own people, not only Aurors and ministry workers, but everyday witches and wizards all attempting to break through the protections surrounding the home. Some of them he recognized, some of them he had fought Voldemort with, gone to _school_ with.

Hermione reached for Harry, the sharp crescent of her nails dug into the inside of his wrist. "How did they find us?" she whispered tremulously.

Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter, they're _here_. Grab everything, grab our research and our ingredients and let's _go_."

Together they stumbled down the stairs and to the study where they haphazardly threw anything pertaining to their time ritual into a conjured satchel. When every item had been collected, Hermione grabbed a pinch of floo, tossed it into the fire as she named Grimmauld Place, and almost set her pants alight when the flames remained their customary hue instead of flaring an emerald green.

Their floo connection had been cut, and failed attempts at both apparating and creating portkeys confirmed that wards had been erected to stop them from fleeing via magical means.

"Okay, so we can't run, there's far too many of them for that," Hermione thought aloud, striving to remain calm even as the intensity of the alarms increased. There wouldn't be much time before the wards failed. "There are no brooms, so flying isn't an option. All we can do is hide."

"Or fight."

"No," Hermione snapped. "There are dozens of them, if we fight, we'll die."

" _I can't die_." Harry grabbed his best friend's shoulders. "You can hide, I'll engage them and, when they're occupied you run, get Ron, bring help."

Hermione shook her head. "I wouldn't make it out the door before they caught me."

"Then let them take you, they don't want you, only me. You'll be safe."

"That's such a stupid fucking idea," Hermione growled. "I'm not going to _hide_ , I'm not going to run and leave you here."

"Hermione-"

"Shut up," she barked. "That's a stupid plan and we're not doing it. But you _are_ right about one thing. They're not here for me."

"Yeah, which is why you should just leave."

"If they find me here without you, they'll do nothing, I'll be safe."

"But, I can't leave, otherwise we would both would be gone already."

Hermione ignored him. She snatched the satchel that hung from his shoulders and rapidly began to unpack it.

"What are you doing?"

Hermione shoved the jar of runespoor eggs, a mortar and a pestle into his hands with the instructions to, "Grind them to dust, and _quickly_."

"Are you trying to perform the ritual?" Harry gaped. "The time isn't right! We can't do it for another two weeks."

"That timeline was more of a guideline than anything." Hermione shoved the rug set before the fireplace to the side, then quickly began etching an enormous runic pentagon onto the hardwood. "We're close enough that it should work."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then you die, but you've assured me that you're immune to such unpleasantness, so it's worth a shot. Grind the eggs, Harry. When they're powder, pluck the down from the diricawl feathers and mix it in."

"This is insane," Harry muttered, but quickly got to work.

Together, they silently prepared the ritual. As Hermione drew Harry mashed, mixed, and combined their numerous and expensive ingredients into one enormous stone pestle, the sound of the wizards steadily and efficiently breaking through the wards played on their ears.

"Put the pestle in the middle of the pentagon then grab the girtablilu skull," Hermione ordered. When both tasks had been performed, Hermione slashed the inside of Harry's wrist with a weak cutting curse and smeared his blood across the forehead of the skull. "I'm going to light the mortar on fire and you're going to stand above it," she instructed briskly. "Once you're in place I'll recite the incantation and you'll be sent back. Go on, move. We don't have any time left."

"Hermione." Harry grabbed her wrist to hold her still for a moment. "Wait, just…when I'm gone, you run and you hide in the highest room. And if they find you, tell them I ran, I apparated and you were only a moment behind me when the anti-apparation wards went up. Tell them that, do you hear me?"

Hermione nodded. "Of course."

"Okay." Harry took a shuddering breath, he looked back at the hastily scrawled pentagon then reached out to envelope Hermione in a hug. "I love you so much, and-and I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Don't worry about me," Hermione whispered, "you go back and do what needs to be done, and I'll be fine."

Harry nodded and exhaled heavily. "I will, you're right. All right, let's do this."

The ground ingredients went up in a burst of curling white smoke, Harry stood just behind the fire, holding the bloodied skull in his left hand. Hermione inhaled deeply, then began to chant. The Latin she'd practiced for hours and hours rolled off of her tongue in a smooth cadence, her voice betrayed none of the fear and anguish that wet her eyes.

Harry smiled, so overwhelmingly proud to have this strong, beautiful woman in his corner, the confident set to her shoulders and her unwavering gaze helped him wrangle his nerves and stand steady as the incantation slowly came to a close.

Outside, there was a rippling breeze as the wards fell, and Harry was gone.

* * *

 **A/N: And there's the time travel! Oh what fun is in store for Harry and his crew. I'm over on both Facebook and Tumblr under my penname (AnarchicMuse), so please, stop by, say hi! Updates on the progress of this story and any other stories I may be working on can be found there.**


	4. Chapter 4

Falling through time was immemorable for Harry only because he was unconscious throughout it all, When Hermione spoke those last words of the ritual, the world, however briefly, disappeared, and when he woke, it was to darkness and a sturdy chair to which his arms and legs were bound. Trying to tug himself free from the rope coiled around his limbs like a restricting boa wouldn't free him, but it was a sort of unacknowledged, universal truth that, when one woke tied up in an unfamiliar place, some sort of struggle had to be put up, even if it yielded nothing.

He didn't keep at his required struggling for long though. Once it became obvious raw strength and dogged resolve weren't going to see him free, he decided it might be best to save his energy for something more likely to see him out of this mess. Something like assessing the situation or observing his surroundings.

And after only two seconds of assessing and observing his surrounding, one thing became glaringly obvious: the ritual hadn't fucking worked. The stupidly fancy desk that wouldn't at all look out of place acting as a center piece in someone like the Prime Minister's office was still sitting with its back to two floor to ceiling windows that remained uncovered enough to silver-wash the room in the light of a less than full moon. The fire had been doused, the ritual cleared away, and Hermione was nowhere to be seen, but this was still, unmistakably, his study. He must have passed out from inhaling all of that smoke coming off of their ritual fire, granting the wizards busting down his door no opposition in taking Hermione wherever she'd disappeared to and tying him up to be dealt with in whatever way they deemed fit.

More wriggling was to be done, this time not in an attempt to squirm free, but in an effort to see if there was anything on him that could be used to get him out of these ropes before whoever had tied him up returned. A wand would be preferable, but he'd take a handily sharp belt buckle if that wasn't an option.

But, of course, his captors weren't complete idiots, his wand was nowhere on his person and anything that may have been used to cut away his binds had been removed and kept carefully out of reach. Of all the times the wizarding world decided it wanted to be competent, it had to be _now_. He was completely at their mercy, no amount of straining and struggling would get him out of the ropes and time was just about up as, somewhere outside the door, mingling voices and several different sets of footsteps approached.

He wanted to do something, he wanted to buck and squirm and wriggle his way to freedom, but knowing the chances of him accomplishing anything were slim to none, Harry forced himself still and the hissing of his breath to go completely silent. His captors were steadily drawing close enough for him to distinguish what was being said between them and he couldn't miss a word.

"The tremor was powerful, just about knocked me off my feet. And the shockwave that came after is what I'm blaming my singed nose hairs on."

"And he was unconscious when he arrived? He wasn't awake to give you a name or tell you where he came from?"

"Nope, he was down from the moment I found him. Thought he was dead at first, gave my Monty and Moira the worst of scares."

What? None of the voices were familiar, that in and of itself wasn't too strange, there were plenty of people in the wizarding world Harry had yet to meet, but their talk of powerful tremors and singed nose hairs was odd, and the question about getting his name and where he'd come from was outright baffling. These men knew him, they'd come _for_ him.

Unless, of course, they hadn't.

Unless, of course, the ritual _hadn't_ failed, not exactly, and that worst course of action Hermione had mentioned had come to pass.

He didn't try to feign unconsciousness when the door swung in, no point in wasting time with the act if that really was the case.

The first two men to enter were unremarkable enough, one was tall, one was slightly less so, they shared the same sort of coloring with dark hair and dark eyes, though their features couldn't have been more different. The most remarkable thing about them were the robes they wore, an outdated version of the same ones Tonks and Kingsley as Aurors had once sported.

Point one for the theory of screwed up timelines.

One more man entered, he too had dark hair, slightly curled but otherwise neat, but his eyes were strikingly blue; he was just the slightest bit familiar despite the fact that Harry had not once laid eyes on him before this moment.

"Look at that," one of the maybe-Aurors urged "he's woken."

The second maybe-Auror nodded at Harry, a polite but distant greeting. "Evening, lad. You feeling all right?"

Harry nodded hesitantly.

"Good, good. I'm Auror Bones, this is my partner, Auror Sully."

The only Bones in the Ministry had been Amelia Bones, who'd been killed at the very start of Voldemort's return. There were no Sully's that he was aware of, at least not among the Aurors.

"Do you know what brought us here?"

"There you are, asking all the wrong questions, Bones." Sully was the larger of the two, but he immediately came of as far less serious than his partner. "He knows just as well as we do why we're here. The real question is what brought _him_ here."

If the names of the two Aurors wasn't a pretty good indicator that Harry had landed somewhere other than where (or rather when) he was supposed to, their complete lack of recognition certainly was.

A scowl, one that was every ounce the unbearable fifteen year old Harry who'd done nothing but skulk around Hogwart's like a miserable sack of angst his entire fifth year, fixed itself to the nineteen year old slayer of dark lord's face as he cast his eyes down to his lap. "Was an accident," he muttered.

"No doubt, and one you won't be punished for if you go on and tell us what happened," Bones encouraged.

"My mate didn't believe me when I told him I'd learned to apparate, I just wanted to prove him wrong, pop to the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest." Harry shrugged petulantly. "Turns out he was right, I _don't_ know how to apparate."

"I thought as much," Sully nodded, proud of himself for whatever reason, "Hogwarts student."

However, Bones was frowning. "Apparating isn't possible within Hogwarts' wards."

Harry, striving to adopt his former roommate, Seamus's, attitude of casual indifference and cheerful naivety shrugged his shoulders. "Could be why I ended up here. Do you think I broke through the wards? That could mean I'm powerful, like Merlin."

"I find that to be incredibly unlikely." Bones flicked his wand, releasing the tight ropes that held Harry immobile to his seat. "Come, let us head off and leave Mr. Potter and his family to what's left of their evening."

Harry gingerly rose from his seat, rubbing at the inside of his wrists where the ropes had rubbed uncomfortably. "Mr. Potter, did you say?" he queried innocently. "Is that where I wound up, the Potter's home?" He turned his gaze to the mostly silent Potter patriarch who still stood nearby the partially closed door. Perhaps he _had_ seen the man before today, there was a parlor on the main floor of the manor in which the portraits of several of Harry's relatives, his grandparents included, had hung. He'd ventured in there only once, at an hour so late all of the portraits had long since fallen asleep, he hadn't gone back since.

"I apologize for interrupting your evening, Mr. Potter….Fleamont Potter, is it?"

The man expressed his confusion with a small downturn of his lips. "That would be my son. Are you not classmates? You look as if you would be in the same year."

Henry Potter then, Harry's _great_ -grandfather. If that wasn't confirmation of his and Hermione's massive blunder, nothing was. "Yes, well different houses, I tend to get names mixed up."

"Speaking of," Sully piped up, "you never did give us yours."

"I didn't, did I?" Harry bounced on the balls of his feet. "Well, about that…. _Stupefy._ "

There was a ripple through the room and the three wizards before Harry staggered back a few steps, they seemed disoriented, but still clearheaded enough to reach for their wands, so he repeated the spell again, this time more emphatically.

" _Stupefy_."

It had its intended affect this time and the men collapsed, unconscious.

Hysteria disguised as humor burst from his lips. How the hell had that actually worked?

Quick work was made of rifling through the two Aurors' pockets, his wand was in Auror Bones' robes, before he was out of the room and headed down the stairs. The Monty and Moira Henry had mentioned earlier, Harry's grandfather and great-grandmother, were waiting in the same parlor Harry and Hermione had been reading in only a few hours earlier. Moira was pacing agitatedly in the space before the fireplace while Fleamont watched his mother. Twin stunning spells met them before they even realized Harry's presence.

And that's about when his momentum careened to a halt. There was no protocol for what one should do when they found themselves thrown back to their grandparents time, which was pretty foolish on his part seeing as Hermione had told him from the very start that this was a very big risk. But that was fine, he was _good_ at working under pressure, Voldemort would still be alive if he weren't.

Step one was finding how far back he'd gone. The exact date was what he needed. The parlor in which Fleamont and Moira were unwillingly napping in held no answers, but in the family dining room, on a small table off to the side of the room, was what looked to be a recent copy of the Daily Prophet. At the top was the date; December 25th, 1941.

The day was right, and the month, the plan had always been to go back to Christmas, it was the year that was off. By sixty-six years.

"Only a suggestion my arse," Harry muttered to a Hermione that hadn't been born yet, he tossed the newspaper back onto the table and sunk into the seat before it. "The bloody lunar phase _was_ important. How the hell am I supposed to go forward sixty-six fucking years?"

The ritual had specified that once done there was no going back, he would have to relieve every year. But surely that hadn't been taking into account cases like this? If the ritual malfunctioned there had to be some way to rectify the mistake, because if there wasn't….If he was _stuck_ here….What would he do if he was stuck? It was nineteen forty-one. Harry's parents weren't even an idea yet, his grandfather was still a Hogwarts student. _Voldemort_ was still just a kid. He paused.

Voldemort was still a kid.

Sure he'd been pretty powerful while young, but not near as powerful as a (newly-named) protégé of death. If Harry wanted to, he could kill him. Now. _Tonight._ Stop him from ever creating a Horcrux, ever killing Myrtle and framing Hagrid, he could stop him before he grew to become the awful creature he'd known in his timeline, so many people would live for it. His _parents_ would live.

"I would abandon that line of thinking, quark, and quickly."

Harry whipped around, knocking his chair to the ground with an enormous clatter, and glared up at Death. "What are you doing here?" he hissed. "How are you here?"

"I would be a poor cosmic deity indeed if such an inconsequential restraint as time got in my way."

"You can time travel?" Harry perked up. "So you could send me back to my time, or rather the time I was trying to get to in the first place?"

"No." Death looked around the room, surveying the horrible striped wallpaper that hadn't been around by the time Harry had inherited the manor. "While I can pass back and forth in time, I cannot bring along passengers."

"But time travel is still an ability you possess and so, technically, one I possess. Teach me how."

"Teach you?" Death seemed faintly amused by the idea. "Passing through time is not a learned ability, it is instinctual, one you cannot do until you simply can. How would you instruct someone on how to perform an act that is akin to breathing? To controlling one's limbs?"

"So you can't take me along as your passenger," Harry summarized. "And you can't _teach_ me how to time travel. What use are you then? Why are you even here?"

Death allowed the angered statement to pass over his head as if it hadn't even registered, and, knowing the deity, it likely hadn't. "I'm here to prevent you from creating a future far worse than the one you've just left."

Harry shook his head, confused.

"The thoughts you were entertaining, killing your dark lord to prevent the deaths of your allies, it is a dangerous one."

Harry scowled. "How could it possibly be dangerous?"

"Tom Riddle, for better or for worse, changed the world. Killing him would create a far different future, one that I cannot guarantee would be better."

"I can't think of a single way in which a world without Voldemort would be a worse one."

"That's because you lack any sort of common sense. Among his victims could have been a wizard far worse than he ever was or could become, one who would rise to cause an infinite amount more destruction than he ever could."

"Right," Harry said dully. "The devil you know and all that…." He sighed, then righted the chair he'd knocked over and fell back into it. "So I'm right back to where I was before, sixty-six years in the past with no plan and nowhere to go." He glared up at the ceiling, refusing to allow the moisture building up in his eyes to escape.

The first traces of devastation were beginning to tighten his chest. Sure he was immortal, he could wait out the sixty-six years, but that was a long time to be alone.

"Get away from England. Europe if you can."

Harry blinked, dispelling the gathering of tears he was still resolutely holding back, then looked Death's way. "What?"

"The further you are from here, the less you might be tempted to change things. Run into any trouble in this time and those from your present will be able to find you much easier. Ergo, leave Europe."

"And go where?"

"Wherever you want. You have nothing holding you here."

Harry laughed, confused and a little amazed, Death was trying to _comfort_ him, this frigid being who had made it very clear from the start how insignificant he considered Harry to be had seen the panic attempting to grip hold of him and had offered an attempt at soothing him. Sure, he was awful at it, the reminder that he had nothing for him in this time was actually pretty crushing, but the attempt itself did what Death's words hadn't.

"I guess I could go to the States. The culture's not too different from here, so I won't be completely out of place. Plus they have enough of a magical presence that I have places to go to look into ways back home, but not so much of one that I would be found easily. And their part in the war with Grindelwald was-is much smaller than the communities here in Europe what with the distance between our two continents acting as a buffer."

Death shrugged, seemingly lacking any further advice. His attempt at comfort must have momentarily drained him of any further compassion. "Whatever you decide to do, best decide it quickly as your ancestors and their guests won't remain unaware for much longer."

"Right." Harry rose from his chair and carefully pushed it beneath the table. "Okay, the U.S., I'm going to the United States. Merlin, that's far though. How am I even supposed to get there?"

"You're resourceful, I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Now that was just a bit too much for Harry, first Death had tried his hand at comforting and now he'd offered something that could _almost_ be considered a compliment.

The cosmic being didn't scowl at the look of utter befuddlement Harry turned on him, he was far too composed for that, but it was a near thing.

"You're still an insufferable quark," he snapped, then moved as if he were preparing to leave.

"Wait!" Harry jolted forward, his hand swung out, only a hair shy of actually touching Death. "Don't go yet. I…They can't know I was here."

"I hardly see how that concerns me."

"I was never very good at erasing memories. I need your help."

Harry's own throat twinged in dehydrated sympathy at how _dry_ Death's next words sounded. "You need my help?"

He shrugged and tried for a charming smile. "Please?"

As a whole, the day had been pretty awful, his world had finally turned on him and he'd been thrown back in time with no real solution as to how to get back, but then Death _nodded_ , reluctantly and face full of disdain, but he'd agreed to help and Harry's awful day became just the slightest bit miraculous.

"Please, just...try not to kill them. I sort of need them to exist."

" _Don't_ tempt me."

A bubble of surprised laughter burst from Harry before he could contain it, who knew Death could be so amusing?

The small bit of happiness the being's antics had conjured managed to hold the worst of Harry's fear and disquiet at bay long enough for him to see memories corrected before leaving the Potter's home for the only place he knew.

The Leaky Cauldron was being manned by Tom, though one who was quite noticeably handsome with a full head of hair and nearly all his teeth in his mouth. A handful of knuts, nicked from a dish beside the Potters' front door, bought him a room for the night and a hot meal. The tumble through time had taken a lot out of him, he was starving and exhausted and if he intended to make it up the street let alone across the Atlantic he would need a good meal and a few hours of rest to help recharge.

One of the tines on the fork that had come with his meal ran along the skin of his forearm, where the dark mark would rest if he'd been on the opposite side of his war. It was the late hours of December twenty-fifth in the year nineteen forty-one. He had left September eighteenth of two thousand and eight. The metal utensil acted as his marker as, silently, he counted years and months until he had rows and columns of straight little lines of red to account for every year in between the two dates. Sixty six years and nine months exactly. That was a lot of years, _too many_ years.

He was alone, with nothing else to distract him from becoming truly overwhelmed. Something dark and invasive unfurled within his chest, it had no physical presence that he knew of and yet it still somehow sat heavy on his lungs and made it immensely difficult to breath. He'd been fighting this presence, this invasive magic that made him see things he didn't want to see and left the distinct taste of death at the back of his throat, since the day it had manifested.

Death had told him, in an attempt at irony, to clear his mind, the books had told him something different. They had suggested not to clear his mind, but merely calm it, soothe the overwhelming emotion every thought and memory of his elicited; such a method was far easier and, in the long run, much more practical than attempting to cease all thought. But Harry was a creature of passion, he wore his every emotion like a proud patch of honor on his sleeve; he'd been learning to get a handle on it, he was no longer a moody teen who could use puberty and hormones as an excuse for his violent moods, but Merlin was it hard. Especially in moments like these, when fear and anger and confusion congealed into one enormous ball of angst that made practicing thinking and acting logically a task of incredible difficulty.

He banged his head against the solid wood of his headboard once, then again, then one more time for good measure, hoping that the sharp aching that blossomed at the base of his skull might shake him from his feelings long enough to allow him to employ some of the techniques he'd been teaching himself. The last thing that he wanted was for the gifts given to him by the Hallows to start acting up and send him into a crazed sort of panic the likes of which had only been seen once in that cramped bathroom when these magics had first forced themselves upon him. That would surely draw the very sort of attention he was hoping to avoid.

He placed his hand over his chest, the point where the magic was at its most concentrated, and pressed just his fingertips inward. The sharp crescent of his fingernails were angled upwards so as to prevent them from cutting into his skin, but the pressure of his fingers into the unyielding bone beneath them wrought a strange sort of discomfort itself. Now his head ached and his chest twinged, the presence of the two separate sensations drew his attention away from the panic he'd been so close to succumbing too. Once its intensity had dulled just the slightest, he was able to force it back and away, wrapped up tight to be dealt with at a later date. Or never. He actually preferred never.

With his emotions slowly falling back into his control, he was able to try again at assessing his predicament. Sixty-six years (and nine months) in the past, with no money, no friends, and no way home. It was awful, but surely not as awful as facing a basilisk at the tender age of twelve, or a dark lord at only seventeen, and he'd made it out of both of those messes just fine. Or mostly fine at least. This was nothing different, only a mild setback in the clusterfuck that was his life. He just needed some order, he needed a plan to follow and keep him on track. And that started with getting to the States.

He was pretty proficient at apparating by now, but the distance was too wide to jump and he'd never been anywhere in the U.S. before so he couldn't exactly picture where it was he intended to land. Portkeys would do the trick, but it was Hermione who knew how to make them, not him, and while the Ministry could do that, it required some sort of proof of identification and galleons, neither of which he had. There were muggle means of travel, as well, of course, though he wasn't too sure about planes as he was fairly certain they were much different now than the reliable crafts he'd seen once or twice in his own time. A boat then, those had proved tried and true for centuries now, and though there was, again, the small matter of not having any money, a simple disillusionment charm would allow him the chance to try his hand at being a stowaway.

* * *

The London Port wasn't far from Charing Cross, a few hours walk perhaps, but barely even fifteen minutes on the Knight Bus. It took the last of his knuts to make the trip, but he was the first on the magical bus the next morning and so arrived at the port before any of the ships were set to disembark.

The port was enormous, it stretched for miles on either side of the River Thames' banks and handled dozens of ships, both passenger and cargo. A passenger ship would be best to stowaway on, these trips tended to last for days if not weeks, and he didn't want to spend his entire time under a disillusionment charm, if he were to sneak onto a ship with a fair amount of passengers it would be no issue blending in, his presence aboard likely wouldn't be questioned.

A bit of window shopping led him to the _RMS Orion,_ it was an impressive size with a crowd waiting to board that was just as sizeable, it would be incredibly easy to get lost in a crowd that size. It was slated to leave for Ellis Island in New York in less than three hours, the trip was predicted to take nine days total. Harry hadn't ever been on a boat of this size, especially not for a journey so long, but he had no issue flying, not even unbound and unprotected on a broomstick, bobbing along a few waves in a fairly secure ocean liner was sure to be nothing.

And it wasn't; the trip itself was bearable enough, Harry had snuck onto the ship with not a single issue and seamlessly integrated himself into the group of second class passengers. He kept to himself for the entirety of the nine days at sea, speaking only when spoken directly to and otherwise acting the perfect part of the recluse he was setting out to be.

The first sight of the famed Statue of Liberty saw everyone on the ship stirring excitedly. They crowded the railing of the ship, pressing shoulder to shoulder and back to chest to watch as they glided in the direction of their new home.

The ship docked at Manhattan first, those in first and second class who had been cleared as healthy by medical inspectors were let off immediately, while the passengers who had ridden third class and any who hadn't passed the initial inspection would have to endure one final stop at Ellis Island before it could be determined if they would pass on to become U.S. citizens or be deported back to the lands they had been attempting to flee. Harry, once again donning a disillusionment charm and a notice-me-not for good measure, insinuated himself among the first group and, together, they disembarked the ship and stepped onto solid ground with a great sigh of relief.

Harry hadn't once strayed from the borders of the United Kingdom, and never had he gone _anywhere_ without so little to his name. No money, no home, and only the clothing he wore, it was daunting, but that long boat ride packed like sardines in a cabin with a dozen other men had helped him to realize that, perhaps, this could be a cause for excitement as well. Harry had no intention of being here long, certainly not the sixty six years he had inadvertently traveled; he had resolved to find a way to the time he was originally aiming for, December of two-thousand and seven. It would be quite the task without Hermione to help with the research, but Harry couldn't constantly rely on his friend to do all of the work and now was as good a time as any to learn to stand on his own two feet. And so he dropped his charm, tightened his jaw, and stepped into the city.

* * *

Manhattan was an incredible place to be, the buildings were enormous, the streets never empty, and something was _always_ going on. The look and feel of the place wasn't so different from London, even so far in the past, not just because of the architecture of the building around him, but also because of the energy the city's inhabitants unknowingly carried about themselves. Harry didn't know much about muggle history, he hadn't stuck with school long enough to know more than the absolute basis of the world's history, but he did recall enough from primary school to be aware of the fact that the second of two world wars was a great cause for concern right now and that the United States had only just recently joined the conflict.

Harry had become reluctantly familiar with the shadow war cast, he'd grown able to discern the presence of the horseman in the slightly hollowed cheeks of children living off of strict rations, in the frantic, precarious ways in which people had taken to living, unsure if the war would allow them to see another day, and especially in the exhausted, desolate shuffle of those who had lost family, blood or otherwise, to the battlefield. Not always did they die, but they never returned the same.

And yet despite the constant reminder that he world was no longer at peace, the stench of fear didn't permeate every street and store and home like it had during Voldemort's reign. Sure the odor of despair might waft past on a not-so-gentle breeze when another son was drafted or a telegram bearing the worst of news was received, but it never lingered, it always passed.

Harry oftentimes found himself admiring this resilience and drawing upon it for himself, especially during his first few weeks in Manhattan, because things were _hard._ The MACUSA center of operations resided in the same city he had taken up residence in, but he had resolved to cut himself completely off from the magical world. He was to live as much like a muggle as he could, a task made supremely difficult by his lack of legal documentation and the fact that he hadn't even attended high school. But that wasn't to say it was impossible.

If there was one thing that war was good for, it was creating jobs. Most of the higher paying ones in factories in office buildings had already been claimed by actual legal citizens, but the smaller, more overlooked jobs were still up for grabs and, more often than not, those looking to hire were so desperate for help they didn't ask for proof of citizenship. Harry found one such gig at a family run grocer; the couple who ran the place were in their later years of life, they had once had help maintaining their store from their three sons, but every last one of them had been drafted and shipped off to the battlefront within months of each other. So Harry stepped in to perform whatever physical task was needed, most often unloading the delivery truck and restocking the shelves, in return he got a couple of dollars every week and his pick of any fruits, vegetables, and other such perishable goods that had grown too old to be sold.

The little he earned wasn't enough to amount to even a month's rent in some of the more destitute neighborhoods in the city, all it was really good for was a few days' worth of food and, eventually, a few changes of clothing, but those two basic necessities were a start, the rest could be worked out given enough ingenuity.

With magic on his side, money really shouldn't be an issue, the dollars he was paid every Thursday could technically be stretched infinitely with the use of a duplication charm, but something about his duplicates always seemed off, it wasn't glaring, but they never seemed quite as authentic as they could be, and, after the horrible recession that had struck the country only a few years ago, muggles had grown especially good at spotting counterfeit currency. A befuddlement charm could certainly be used in ways as small as confusing his employers into paying him just a bit more or something as large as tricking potential landlords into believing he'd paid rent that month. However, either could figure out something was amiss before long and, even if they didn't, the continued use of magic on muggles would undoubtedly draw the attention of the Ministry. So instead of using his magic to con those he encountered, Harry settled for using it to simply build himself a suitable shelter.

The fantastic thing about New York was that it was full of convenient alleyways and hidey-holes for one to claim, and only a half days jaunt through the city found him the perfect one to hole up in. It was small, cozy even, and tucked away from the worst of foot traffic; the scraps of a dismantled bookcase were assembled with the use of a sticking charm or two to create him the perfect lean-to, and a few warming and impervious charms protected him from the worst of the weather. Harry only knew a handful of low powered wards, most of which he'd learned from Hermione during their cross-country camping trip, but they were more than enough to keep curious muggles and animals alike away from his shelter.

It wasn't much, he was living in an _alley_ for Merlin's sake, but it was warm and somewhat private and, for someone who had never truly had a place to call home anyway, it wasn't half bad.


	5. Chapter 5

**Warning for period-typical racism and homophobia**

* * *

It took time, too much time, before Harry was ready to stop being completely alone, before he'd gathered the necessary courage to leave his comfortable nook of discarded cushions and warming charms and traverse the handful of blocks it took to reach the New York Public Library.

Up the many stairs and past the hulking columns that stood guard before the heavy wooden doors lay the muggle entrance. But if a witch or wizard were to present their wand to the leftmost of the two marble carved lions, the far right entrance would grant them access to a wing completely hidden from the mundane world. A wing in which resided enough books and knowledge regarding all aspects of the wizarding world to sate a rabid learner of even Hermione's caliber. There would surely be plenty a text on time and the wizards foolish enough to attempt meddling with it, there might even be some sort of solution to the mess Harry had wound up in.

He hesitated though, he put the trip off for weeks not because he was afraid to fail or because he was wary of making any sort of contact with the wizards of this time. He hesitated because he was selfish.

He wanted to go home, he wanted to see his friends and right his wrongs, but at the same time he needed a break. Correcting the ritual's error didn't mean just going home and seeing his family again, it meant returning to a time where the Hallows were not yet united, which also so happened to be a time when not all of the Horcruxes had been retrieved and destroyed, a time when _Voldemort was still alive._ And after making it out of that last encounter with the dark lord by just the skin on his teeth, he wasn't all that eager to repeat it once more. Not so soon. So he hesitated, he allowed himself to be selfish for one week that turned to two that lengthened to three, ignoring the guilt that plagued him _every goddamn second_ until he finally thought he might be strong enough to give saving his world one more go.

Behind the protections that the hulking lion with his condescendingly _knowing_ stone eyes guarded was a place unlike even Hogwarts' trove of books. The floorspace allowed only enough room for a dozen or two rows of shelves, but each shelf rose and twisted far above his head, branching off like enormous trees adorned not with green leaves of a spring Harry was anticipating with a fervent desperation, but with fat and long and thin and squat books of all hues and contents.

Among each aisle were women, tall and skeletal with feet like eagles and arms like wings, harpies who fluttered among the branches to collect the books outside of the patrons' reach. They were as severe as Madame Pince, but effective and quick in retrieving every book he was in need of, of which there were more than a few.

The section devoted to books on the different forms of time travel and the many ways of accomplishing it was enormous, there was an entire branch on which sat row upon row of the books. There were too many to count and too many to read through in one sitting, so the first ten on the directory were selected in a vain attempt at narrowing his options down and he moved to sit at one of the comfortable desk and chair sets resting in the shadow of the closest bookcase.

The first book to be cracked open was an index of every creature and artifact that possessed the ability, no matter how minor, to alter time. It wasn't very thick as there weren't very many such creatures, but it was useful and so was set to the side to be studied more dedicatedly sometime later.

The next described the potential consequences of unregulated time travel in great detail, and while Harry figured that perhaps it could have been of some use to him, Hermione, and Ron when first embarking on this mad endeavor to prevent the collapse of the wizarding world, it was now pretty useless. Thus it began the pile of texts to be returned to the shelf.

The process of sorting each book into a pile to be kept and a pile to be discarded saw only a little less than a quarter of an hour pass and left Harry with a half dozen books to be kept and read. Once those he didn't think would be of much use to him were returned to the shelf, the topmost book of his remaining pile was selected to begin his research. It was a journal containing accounts of all wizards known to have manipulated the time stream and what had become of them. It wasn't overly large, about half the thickness of one of his old schoolbooks, and was precluded by a rather long foreword detailing the theory of time travel and all of its possibilities. Had it been for any other subject being studied for any other reason, Harry might have skipped the prelude, but the last thing he wanted was to miss some potentially vital piece of information because of his own laziness so he grit his teeth and choked down each drily written word with a resolve that would have made Hermione proud.

As it turned out, that was a mistake.

The concept of time travel introduced in the prelude, no matter how simply explained, was absolutely mind-boggling. The ritual had cast him into the past, but had it also stopped his present from carrying on? Had the time he left stopped simply because he wasn't there to witness it, or, even as he sat in this library, was the wizarding world still battling pestilence and famine and terrified muggles? It made sense to believe the latter was the case, he hadn't stopped time itself only traveled through it, and until he made it to the date and year he had originally been aiming for and altered the events that had led to this entire ordeal, were his friends and the world he had left behind still experiencing all levels of misery? Was the wizarding world still dying? Ginny still suffering from scrofungulus? Were the Weasleys even now dealing with harassment concerning his whereabouts from the Ministry? Were his friends and family preparing for a war against a foe that outnumbered them astronomically?

The aged pages of the journal connected in the center with a muted _thump_ , the book collided with the table with an identical sound and slid across its smooth surface before coming to a teetering halt just at its edge. Harry's lips were screwed into a grim frown as he attempted, with very limited success, to stop himself from falling back into the morbid mood he'd been struggling with since arriving in this time.

Half an hour, he'd lasted only half an hour actively focusing on his time troubles before his implacable angst had taken over. Not bad for a first attempt, but now he needed air, a break would do him good, he could stop for lunch. There was a stand set up just across the street that sold fresh fruits and chilled drinks, both of which sounded mighty appealing at the moment.

Harry was allowed food from his place of employment, but only the wares that could no longer be kept on the shelf, the breads that were sprouting mold and the apples with worms burrowed into their cores. Most days he was able to ignore the repulsiveness of the food, especially when money was short and his stomach was willing to take anything so long as it didn't have to remain hollow another moment longer. But actual fresh fruit did him good every now and then, it left him fuller and more energized than whatever he could pick out from the grocers. Besides, tomorrow was payday, he could afford to splurge just a little.

The thought coaxed a snort from him, not one of amusement, but rather one laced with a bitter sort of irony. Since when was buying an apple not infested with worms considered a _luxury_? He'd never been particularly spoiled, not when growing up under the Dursleys' harsh thumb, but Hogwarts and its casual luxuries had allowed him to grow used to simple comforts such as a soft bed and warm food. It was only when he was forced to do without it that he realized just how much he had taken for granted.

Every apple at the stand was just on the wrong side of overripe, but he still selected two from the pile with great relish and, only somewhat reluctantly, handed over several cents to the woman standing guard over the stockpile of fruits and vegetables. The first bite to be taken was soft, lacking that sharp, crisp crunch Harry only ever dreamed of nowadays, but it was also, thankfully, lacking a mushy, fermented center and wriggling intruders lurking beneath mottled brown flesh, and so he counted this purchase as one well worth the money spent.

Of course, that still didn't stop him from wishing for something just a bit more savory. The deli next door sold cold cut meat and real cheeses with bread baked fresh every morning, what Harry wouldn't give for a proper sandwich right now was frankly laughable, but the few cents he had to his name wouldn't be able to afford him even a slice of bread from the place, let alone one piled with all of the fixings. He'd have to simply settle for lingering in the doorway and enjoying the scent of the place.

But another seemed to have had the same idea as him, a girl no older than four or five had her small face pressed against the glass of the shop and was watching avidly as the younger man working behind the counter piled an assortment of meats and cheese on a sliced loaf of bread for a customer. The man had glanced over at the girl a time or two, he looked the slightest bit dismayed by the streaks she was leaving on the glass, but made no move to shoo her away. But it seemed not everyone was so tolerant of her harmless presence, an older man accompanied by a middle aged woman who looked similar enough to him to be his daughter exited the deli with a scowl on his face. He held the bag his food had been tucked away in to his chest, as if worried the little girl who stood no more than three feet high might try and snatch it from his person.

He let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a cross between a hiss and a snarl in the girl's direction, a noise that was reminiscent of one who was trying to frighten off a wild animal. "Get on away from here now!" the man moved several steps towards the girl, as if trying to herd her away without actually touching her. "Get away from there 'less you plan on cleaning up the mess you're making. Folk like you don't belong on this side of the city, bringing down the reputation of places like this."

The girl jerked away from the window, startled from her childlike awe by the vehement disdain the stranger was radiating.

"Where's your mammy, girl? She should be better at keeping you out of the way."

A quick glance around showed a woman similar in appearance to the child in question standing with a toddler on her hip several meters away at the fruit stand Harry had only just left. The girl was looking toward her mother as well, clearly wishing to return to her side, but the bitter old man was blocking her path and steadily moving closer. He was seemingly emboldened by the girl's fearful silence and the pointed way those around them looked away as they passed.

With her immediate route blocked, the girl attempted to back away, but the buckle on her shoe was loose and, when she attempted a shuffling step back, it came completely undone, unbalancing her and sending her sprawling to the ground. Frightened by the hostility still bearing down from her and likely in a fair bit of pain, all she could do was begin to wail.

As if trained to pick out the sound of her child's cry from within a crowd, the woman at the fruit stand whipped around, almost immediately she zeroed in on the scene she'd previously been unaware of and a mixture of fear and fury washed across her face. However, before she could begin to push her way past those moving along the sidewalk, Harry was already moving in to aid the girl.

Of its own volition his face began twisting in a scowl much more impressive than the one the other man was bearing as he stepped between him and the fallen girl. "Leave her, she's just a kid."

"The dirty little monkey is getting underfoot."

Harry knew he likely didn't look particularly menacing, he was never overly tall and his new lifestyle had him leaner than ever, but he'd defeated a dark lord dammit and become Death's equal, that had to be worth something, he could frighten off one racist old coot. "What a brave little man you must think yourself to be, harassing a child due to your own small mindedness." Being on the receiving end of countless disdainful sneers, first from Snape then from Death, left him surprisingly good at doling out a few of his own. His own might not be quite on par with either man's but it was still surprisingly close. " _Leave her._ "

Harry didn't flinch when the man spat at his feet, nor when he purposely slammed into his shoulder as he passed. The weak old thing barely even moved him an inch anyhow. Once he was gone, Harry knelt before the little girl and quickly replaced his own look of disdain with a smile.

"That was quite the fall you took, are you all right?"

Fat tears were still rolling from the girl's eyes as she shook her head and held up her little hands, her palms were scraped from where they had broken the worst of her fall and little bits of dirt and grit had embedded themselves into the flesh.

"Oh goodness, look at that. That's quite some damage you took." Harry gently ran the backs of his knuckles over her hands to brush away the worst of the mess. "But you're hardly even crying anymore, you must be a brave one."

The reverse psychology worked like a charm, the girl blinked several times to banish the last of her tears, then scrubbed them from her cheeks with the hand Harry wasn't working on.

His smile only grew wider. "Yes, I was right. You _are_ brave. And look at this," he carefully maneuvered her wrists so that her hands, palms facing forward, were at eye level, "you're all better too."

"I lost my shoe."

"Oh no, it's right here." Harry reached behind himself to retrieve the shiny black shoe, then gestured to her bare foot. "May I?"

Once receiving a nod, he placed the girl's foot in his lap and proceeded to tuck her foot back into the shoe before buckling it securely. "There you are, Cinderella."

The little girl cocked her head in confusion. "I'm not Cinderella, I'm Annalise. I don't look nothing like her."

"Maybe not. But who needs blonde hair and blue eyes when you have such lovely braids."

Annalise's round cheeks flushed as she gripped the ends of her two cornrowed braids, tied off with a set of pale blue ribbons.

"When someone says something nice to you, you say thank you, Lissi."

Harry glanced over his shoulder and found the young girl's mother standing only a foot or so behind him. Her brow was furrowed but she didn't look particularly upset.

Annalise patted one of Harry hands with her own and did as her mother instructed and thanked him.

"It was my pleasure."

Harry gently helped her to her feet then stepped aside so that she could move to her mother's side and take hold of her hand.

"Thank you." This time, the show of gratitude had come from the young mother.

Harry dipped his head in acknowledgment but said, "There's no need to thank me for showing some human decency, no matter how uncommon it seems to be in these times." Harry retrieved his bag of apples from the stoop in which he'd dropped them off, then waved at the two women. "Have a good day, miss. It was lovely to meet you, Annalise."

There was a break in the automobiles that were rumbling past on the street, so Harry took his chance to quickly jog across and up to the steps of the library where he might finally have his meager lunch in the shadow of one of the lounging stone lions.

The cruel bite of early January winter was curiously absent for just these few hours, the heavy warmth of too many bodies crammed into one city and the curdling smoke coming from street cars and automobiles had chased it away just long enough for Harry to enjoy his lunch without fear of losing a few toes to the cold. The air couldn't really be considered fresh, not in this city, but it at least wasn't foul, there was a certain charm to the amalgamation of gasoline, the unique tang of human, and the aroma of whatever hot food the vendors on the corners were selling today. It couldn't be considered home, not when the closest thing to home carried the sharp scent of the Scottish highlands and of pure, untainted earth, but it was soothing in its own right. He'd fallen asleep to it and the ambient noise of the place one too many a night not to have grown at least somewhat comfortable with it.

The first of two apples was steadily whittled to its core and Harry allowed himself, for a brief moment to relax, unworried about his position in this place and this moment, untethered from the pressing concerns of money and security and his overall lack of productivity.

It didn't last long, of course, such moments never did, a mind untethered had the nasty habit of drifting unpermitted to those thoughts that wished to be tucked away and forgotten. Harry could fight it, he knew it would be excellent practice at the Occlumency he was neglecting, but he didn't want to. Maybe indulging in these awful thoughts for a few minutes might finally make them go away, or at least stop pressing at his psyche so insistently. One question in particular refused to cease dogging him; what had happened to Hermione? He'd left her in the manor with the wizarding world tearing down their door and demanding his head, had his assumption that the wizarding world was only after him proven to be correct? Had they bought the lie he'd insisted she tell and left her in peace? Or had the entire ploy failed miserably leaving her to pay the price?

The thought that she might be suffering because of his ignorance weighted his chest, it was an ugly thing to consider made even worse by how little he could do to fix it until he found a way back to his time. _If_ he found a way back to his time. Because as of right now, he had a fistful of nothing and was still only inching in the direction of even a little something. It could be weeks or months before anything of value was found and the thought of being stuck in this time until then, eating moldy apples and sleeping in alleys (no matter how comfortably he'd fixed it up) was constricting.

Sickle shaped fingernails pressed and depressed the skin on the side of his wrist, not hard enough to break skin but just enough to provide a grounding pain. It was the only technique Harry had found that actually worked at keeping him from blowing up another round of toilets or forcing visions of the dead onto himself. Hermione had tried to get him to stop, claiming it was dangerously close to self-harm, but he wasn't willing to give up the one thing that kept him in his head at least until he found another method that proved to be effective. And if he'd yet to find such a method…well, he had a lot on his mind at the moment.

Somewhere beside him, the crunch of wrapping paper drew him from his mind and back to the painfully wrong present. A man, elderly but not yet stooping with his age, had managed to approach without him hearing, he'd stopped far enough so that he wasn't crowding but it was clear he was waiting on something. When Harry's attention turned to him, he smiled and covered the last bit of distance between them to place an oblong object wrapped in unmarked wax paper on the ground at Harry's side.

Harry first looked down at it, then up at the man, confused and maybe a bit wary. But the stranger only continued to smile.

"For you."

Something like a confused frown played at Harry's lips, he reached out cautiously to touch just a single finger to the object, he was half expecting a familiar pull behind his navel but there was nothing but the yielding of something squishy beneath his finger. The man only nodded encouragingly.

It was a sandwich, the fixings weren't anything elaborate, but they were cold from the ice and the bread still smelled of the oven. It was all Harry had been dreaming of, but he knew Moody would rise from the grave, traverse the timeline, and curse him six ways to Sunday if he accepted, let alone _ate_ , food offered to him by a stranger.

"It's only meat and cheese." The man spoke with a faintly European accent Harry was just shy of placing. "A nice compliment to the rotten apples you'd been overcharged for."

The wrapper crinkled again when Harry replaced the sandwich on it. "Why…?"

A shrug was his immediate response, followed by a simple but not at all clarifying, "I saw you looking."

The older gentleman tipped his hat, then turned and sauntered off. Harry watched him until he rounded a corner then looked back down at the unwrapped sandwich sitting in his lap. It would be incredibly irresponsible of him to try his luck, the wizarding world was dependent on him (even if they weren't yet aware of it) to make it back to the present and fix what needed fixing. He shouldn't risk being taken out by a sandwich of all things. But he _was_ supposedly immune from such things as poisoning and death, the worst it was likely to do was give him a bad case of the runs.

Mind made up, he took a tentative bite from one end and tried his best not to groan _too_ obscenely over just how good the simple sandwich was. It only took one more bite for him to come to two conclusions a) the sandwich wasn't poisoned and b) even if it was, he wasn't sure he'd be able to bring himself to stop eating it as it was _divine_.

The money he made at the grocers was enough to afford him solid meals each day, but when shopping for goods he had to look for canned foods, non-perishables as his lean-to in the alley didn't come with an icebox and keeping perishables such as meats and dairy at just the right temperature with spellwork was tricky business, the sort he wasn't the slightest bit proficient in. So it was mostly canned fruits and spam for him. He might have enough left over at the end of the week to allow a small treat, but never enough for something as fresh and _good_ as a sandwich.

The stranger's kindness baffled him though, in the time he'd been here he'd grown used to being completely ignored or, when his outer appearance reflected just how rough his nights could get, thrown disdainful looks, no one had once gone out of their way to show him even the smallest bit of compassion. Harry wished the man had stuck around long enough for him to get over his suspicion and grant him a proper thanks.

The last of the sandwich was swallowed mournfully, leaving Harry gazing contemplatively at the wrapper with the question of whether or not it would be socially acceptable to suck the crumbs from the paper in an effort to regain just a bit of that flavor.

But living on the streets hadn't completely done away with the manners Petunia had instilled in him, so he tossed the paper into the closest bin and decided to begin heading in the direction of the grocers. He'd end up being a little early, but he doubted he'd be turned away.

Natania Aronoff, the female half of the couple who ran the shop was working behind the counter as she often did while her husband, Obadiah, worked on artistically arranging cans of spam on the shelf. As predicted, neither were the slightest bit opposed to getting started earlier.

"Mr. Aronoff over there tried moving a few of those boxes all alone," Natania tittered as Harry began moving crates of fresh vegetables to the front. "Near pulled something in his back."

Obadiah grumbled good naturedly in response to his wife's teasing. "Didn't want the fruit getting bad sitting in the back 'till he showed up, did I?"

"And yet all you managed to do was nearly send a whole crate of melons to the floor."

Harry hummed softly in amusement, only half listening to the couple as they bickered. The Aronoffs were kind to him, oftentimes doting upon him as if he were one of the sons he'd heard so much about. They were much like Mrs. And Mr. Weasley in that respect, and while occasionally that could be a comfort, most times it was an unwelcome reminder of what he was missing. He was sorely lacking in company these days, Death had visited him but once since their conversation in Potter Manor and though Natania and Obadiah treated him so kindly, he was still only their employee and saw them only a few hours a day. The rest of his days were spent mostly in silence as he explored the streets alone, kept warm in his makeshift home, and, now, researched within the quiet of the library. His human interaction outside of work was limited to thanking the men and women who accepted his payments for food and wishing them a good day.

It wasn't quite as awful as it sounded, Harry was used to solitude considering he'd spent the first half of his life living in a cupboard, but he'd also grown used to the chaos of the Burrow and the complete lack of privacy in the boy's dorms. It would be nice to have that, or even something like that, back.

There were plenty of pubs and dance halls in the area around where he slept, Harry's own alley was often visited by a drunken young adult or two looking to relieve the contents of their stomach, but the thought of wasting his already limited funds on watered down liquor didn't seem like the wisest of decisions and he'd learned all the way in fourth year at the Yule Ball that dancing was not his strong suit. He was looking to make friends, not send some poor girl to the hospital due to his own hazardous dance skills.

And while it would be nice to have friends again, it was probably best Harry didn't go around forming attachments as it would only make it harder for him to leave when his small problem was finally solved.

But then he took his lunch out on the steps of the library the next day.

He wouldn't lie and say a part of him wasn't hoping the stranger might return, he wanted to thank him, that one small act had made the rest of his day infinitely better. He'd even bought two apples, perfectly ripened without a hint of brown anywhere on their smooth surface, with the last of his money. He would have liked to go for something a little more, but it was all he could afford at the moment.

Harry was on the steps for no more than half an hour before the man arrived, this time he carried two sandwiches and, instead of heading off after Harry had accepted one of the two, sat down on the step just below him with a happy little sigh. Harry hastened to collect the two apples from the paper bag he'd had the shop owner put them in and held them out to the man who looked them both over for only a hint of a moment before plucking the one from Harry's left hand.

"They're both for you," he insisted, continuing to hold out the second of apples.

But the man shook his head decisively. "We will share."

Neither spoke after that as there really wasn't much else to say. Harry enjoyed this sandwich just as much as he had the first and hummed happily when his apple crunched just the way he liked it. The man seemed just as pleased, his unusual smile didn't leave his face throughout the entire meal and, when he was done, he departed with a friendly pat to Harry's knee and a simple farewell of. "I will see you tomorrow."

And he was true to his word. The very next day, around the same time as the previous afternoon, he was back on the steps of the library, this time before even Harry, with two sandwiches, one of which he happily traded for an apple and a bottle of still cold cola. As lunch was eaten, the man read from a newspaper folded neatly in his lap while Harry observed the multitude of people that passed his resting spot, both as one whole crowd and the individuals moving within it. There were men, some old, some young, some dressed to the nines in suits and shiny shoes and others sporting work stained trousers and cracked fingernails. There were women, closely followed like mother ducks leading their ducklings as they moved from shop to shop collecting groceries for the week, then there were women, in a variety of different uniforms alone and brisk as they stopped for a quick lunch before break ended and it was back to work. And though the hour was still fairly early, there were even a few children out, most in their later years of adolescence, teens cutting class for cokes and a movie, or whatever it was teens in the forties did when playing hooky. It were those in that final group Harry found himself watching the most, there weren't many out, and though they were doing their best to remain inconspicuous, they were very easily spotted. They carried an aura of cheer and vibrancy that seemed to be lacking in those a bit older.

A subconscious smile crept across his face as an acne spotted teen with knobby knees poking out from beneath his shorts and a slightly larger teen with a crooked smile and hair that shone copper in the sun playfully pushed at each other as they took up far more space on the sidewalk than two boys their size really needed. The easy camaraderie between them reminded him of his time with Ron or even Dean, Seamus, and Neville before the war almost immediately followed by the coming of the end of days snuffed out that light.

"I wonder if they know what it is to suffer."

The words, more than either had said the entire day, tensed the muscles in Harry's shoulders. They were so morbid and yet spoken so casually, and considering they'd come unprompted, caused his danger radar to perk interestedly.

Harry's lunch companion was no longer reading his paper, but was now watching the two young men Harry had been. When he noticed his scrutiny, he smiled calmly and continued to speak. "Looking around, it's almost hard to believe there is war. Take away the propaganda posters and the recruitment stations on every block and all seems normal."

"Does this make you angry?"

Harry's tone was cautious, but the man only laughed, though the sound wasn't entirely happy. "No. It only makes me sad."

"Why sad? Why not happy? Relieved these people are still untouched by war?"

"I am. Happy. Relieved. I am all of those things. When I wondered if they had felt suffering, it was not out of spite or any malicious desire to see them unhappy. I hope they never feel it. But while I am happy, relieved, I am also jealous. My people suffered, my family suffered, I wonder why they couldn't have been afforded this same freedom to not fear for their lives and safety come each rise of the day."

"They were victims of the war?"

"We all were. Augsburg, have you heard of it?"

Harry hadn't.

"Some of the first to suffer at the Fuehrer's hands. But they are often overlooked, even villainized for the one thing we had in common with him. There was none of what we see here for them, our stores were not plentiful, we did not thrive. When the Fuehrer invaded we were a broken people."

"Many of them will never know the full magnitude of suffering," Harry said, "but they will not remain untainted by this war, they've already experienced a sliver of its cruelty and they will experience much more. But they will not bow, they will not break, and though they might come out a bit tainted, they won't be ruined."

This time it was the older man's turn to look upon Harry speculatively, he only shrugged and returned the calm smile he'd been shown when the roles were reversed.

"I know war."

"You know suffering."

The calm on Harry's lips turned bitter, such truth was rarely spoken. "I do."

* * *

There was no question that Harry knew very little about the finer details of the war, he knew it was one in which much of the world had been involved in, hence its later dubbing of the second of world wars, and that Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler, was one of the main antagonists of the conflict. But the rest, how Germany came to be such a formidable power, the intricacies of _why_ they felt the need to wage war upon the world, were lost upon him.

As it had only begun a few years ago, and only affected American soil a few months ago, there were no books on the war. There were news stories and magazine articles aplenty, but those to be found in the library were very heavily biased in favor of America and the Allied powers. It was only thanks to his knowledge of what would come to pass, minimal as it may be, that helped him piece together what had already occurred and, more importantly, why.

"This is not the text of your world of magic."

Harry startled when, from nowhere, Death appeared to pluck the magazine, dated from nearly ten years ago, from his grasp. He glared for both the infraction of nearly stopping his heart with his sudden arrival, and for being interrupted just as he was beginning to become absorbed in the frankly boring article of economic crises in far off countries.

"I'm broadening my horizons," he snapped as he reached across the table to snatch his magazine back.

"Does that mean you've given up your pitiful attempts at unlocking the secrets of time travel and decided to focus on more worthwhile ventures?"

"Not in the slightest. Why are you here?"

"I'm worried for you, quark." Death managed to maintain his façade of caring concern for a grand total of three seconds before cracking in the face of Harry's incredulity. "No, I was merely curious to see if you'd yet cracked under the strain of being displaced in time."

"You didn't have to interrupt my reading to do that," Harry noted drily. "All it would have taken was a quick peek to see I had most certainly not cracked under any sort of strain."

"I'm much better at gauging such things through face to face conversation."

"For whatever reason, I don't believe that for even a moment."

"Cynic."

"Until the end."

The magazine was tossed to the side, ignored now that Harry had something much more interesting to focus on.

"If you're not going to tell me what you've really come for, you can at least answer a question for me."

Death didn't verbally respond, but he also didn't disappear as he often did when he grew bored of a conversation, so Harry took it as permission to ask his question.

"Those skills you told me I would manifest as time passed, those to do with death, I haven't seen anything of them. And the ones I've already inherited from you have been strangely absent. It's unnerving. Especially because you said they make themselves known when I'm experiencing heightened amounts of emotion and that's about _all_ I've been feeling these past few weeks."

"You've been frightened? Angry? Under much stress?"

"All of the above, all of the time."

"Poor little quark."

Harry could only roll his eyes at the utter lack of sincerity behind his companion's words, he only waited patiently for Death to continue.

"Until you gain some semblance of control over the gifts you've been granted, they will continue to rise in your defense when you're feeling _unusual_ amounts of emotions. And because, as you said, you've been feeling heightened emotions on a regular, they've reserved themselves for when you're feeling truly catastrophic."

"So I'd have to go nuclear in order to see a repeat of what happened in the bathroom?" Harry surmised. "All thanks to my messed up emotional health?"

"Precisely."

"Well, that's comforting I suppose. But after I gain control of myself and my emotions, how would I be able to consciously call forth those skills?"

Death shrugged. "How do you wield your magic?"

"With a wand?"

The look Harry received in response was witheringly condescending. "You've performed feats without it, yes?"

"Once or twice, yeah. But that was when I really needed it to work."

"Then you'll really need this to work as well."

"Brilliant advice. Truly."

Death smiled immodestly. "A being as old as I am would be full of such advice. Do with it what you will, I'll be taking my leave now. But before I do, I'd like to relay that discovering you haven't yet succumbed to madness was a true disappointment."

Harry's eyes were bound to fall out with how much he was rolling them. "I'll try and have that rectified by the next time you decide to pay a random visit."

"Please."

There was no indicator of his departure, just as there had been none for his arrival. One moment Harry was seated across from a darkly handsome man in a neatly pressed suit, and the next he wasn't, however, the muggle or two browsing the shelves around the table Harry was seated at seemed totally unaware of the magic that had occurred only a few meters away. Just to be safe though, Harry quickly gathered the magazine and newspapers he'd collected from the archives and, after returning them to their proper places, hastily departed the library.

The evening was drawing late, just behind the clouds was a patchwork of bruised amethyst and coral pinks with haphazard streaks of burnt orange across the horizon. It would be another half an hour or so until total darkness fell and even then it would be too early to settle down in his home where the only entertainment he might find was trying to pick out a star or two around all of the light pollution. On nights like these, ones when he found himself with far too much time before the end of his day, he took to wandering, simply walking and observing until he grew too tired to carry on, but it was cold out and the gathering of clouds above looked as if they were prepared to soak him to the bone quicker than he could draw his wand for an impervious charm, it wouldn't do to remain out here for long.

It had already been decided that cheap alcohol was not a wise purchase considering his budget and dancing just wasn't for him, but perhaps he could find a hall, pull up a seat and watch others enjoy themselves. At the very least it was sure to be warm considering how packed those halls so often were.

It would be a bit of walk to make it to the west-most side of the city, but it was there Harry knew he would be able to find a few of the less reputable halls and the like, places where it would be much easier to lose time even without drink and dance.

Harry wasn't dressed for dancing; his shirt was untucked, his shoes unshined, and his hair, in all of its gravity defying glory, stuck out sorely from all of the neatly gelled coifs men of this era liked to sport, but he was allowed within one particularly thriving hall with little fuss and, after collecting a glass of water that could easily be mistaken for clear liquor, moved to a seat along the wall where he could watch with little concern of being watched in return.

The floor was writhing with the number of men and women twisting and leaping and swaying across it, the band with all of its roaring instruments made it hard to keep track of his thoughts while the lead singer, a beautiful women with a voice that crooned and commanded her audience to move stood above them all like a glittered goddess.

A smile touched Harry's lips as he tracked the movement of the dancers; he hated this time and he'd made no secret of that fact, it was poor and racist, the streets stunk of sewage and the air was weighty with war, but if he could continue to find sanctuaries such as this, places of levity and good spirit, he might survive his misery long enough to make it home.

That bolstering thought and his single glass of water kept him company throughout the whole of the night. He didn't move from his spot, even upon receiving an invitation or two to dance, but not once did he feel the niggling sense of boredom that often began to plague him after an hour or two of inactivity.

The hall closed well after midnight and it wasn't until the band began shutting down and the dancers hobbled, exhausted and satisfied, from the floor that he peeled himself from his seat in the corner and stepped back out onto the street.

That temperature had plunged from cold to below freezing, as it usually did once night had fallen, and the deluge of rain that had started up just as he'd ducked into the hall was now a slushy mix of mist and snow. There were still people about, though noticeably less than during the peak hours of the day, most on their way home from whatever dance hall or bar they'd been passing time in. Most were well past drunk, but none seemed particularly interested in giving him any trouble, and even if they were, a few inebriated muggles didn't pose much of a threat to him. That still wasn't any cause to let his guard down, inebriated muggles might not prove to be very dangerous, but fully sober muggles with the intention of preying on those too full of liquor to properly defend themselves just might be if they got the drop on him. He remained relaxed yet vigilant, fully prepared to defend himself if need be but not unnecessarily tensed. And he would have made it home with no problems if he hadn't tried for a shorter route he'd seen on his way in, if he'd stuck to the way he came he wouldn't nearly have been barreled over by a man who looked well past terror and was sporting a bleeding gash over his left brow and barely managing to keep his undone pants from falling around his knees and tripping him up.

The man didn't pause, not even long enough to apologize for nearly flattening Harry into the snow, and the noise of flesh impacting flesh and wounded yet furious yelling was a pretty good indicator of why. Around the corner, in the narrow space between two shops, three men had a woman surrounded and were doing there level best to grind her into the pavement through a series of brutally aimed blows. And though she wasn't going down easy, kicking at her attackers every chance she got and valiantly struggling to rise, the combined fists and feet of three heavyset men, all of whom seemed clearly inebriated, was simply too much to hold up against.

The thought of leaving, keeping his nose out of a strangers business and allowing a woman to be beat to death never even crossed his mind. The moment the scene fully registered in his mind, Harry was casting his gaze about for anything he could use as an improvised weapon. Almost immediately, he settled on the rounded lid of a metal trash can, it wasn't ideal, but it would certainly do in a pinch.

The lid, stiff from the cold as it was, made the most satisfyingly crisp whistle as it swung in Harry's hands to collide into the closest man's back. He pitched forward, hitting the ground heavy only inches away from the injured woman, in that moment of confusion, Harry leapt forward and directly on top of his ankle, crushing the bone beneath his feet and effectively taking him out of the skirmish.

As their friend howled on the ground, the remaining two men turned on Harry confused but ready for a fight. The trash bin lid swung up just in time to protect his face from an already bloodied fist, but the strength behind the blow was enough to cause Harry's arms to buckle and knock the lid directly into his face. It was a stunning, and slightly embarrassing if he were being honest with himself, injury to be had, but he couldn't let it, or the stars dancing before his eyes, impair him, there were still two men _somewhere_ in front of him.

He found one when a fist made impact with his stomach, nearly buckling his knees from under him, fortunately there was a conveniently placed head of hair for him to latch onto to help keep him standing. And while he had it, he might as well use his handhold to yank his attackers head back, it threw his equilibrium off just long enough for Harry to introduce his clenched fist to the man's exposed throat. Though the blow was lacking the same strength his attackers had behind their own, it was still more than enough to temporarily close his airways and leave him in a gasping pile of uselessness.

Harry spun, trash lid raised to defend against the third and final assailant, but he was already occupied fighting the woman Harry had been rushing to protect. The both of them were lying on their backs with the woman half underneath the man, her stocking clad legs were locked around his waist, keeping him in place, while her muscular arms were clenched around his head in a devastating chokehold. The man struggled and flailed but his previous victim didn't budge an inch and, within only a handful more seconds, he was unconscious. She held on for a moment longer to make sure he wasn't faking, before allowing him to slump onto the pavement.

Three men down in less than two minutes and the worst Harry had to show for it was a throbbing face and potentially bruised ribs. The woman, on the other hand, looked much worse for wear. Her stocking had runs all up and down her legs, her dress was already staining with blood and dirt and whatever else it had accrued while she was rolling around on the ground, and she'd lost her shoe, one half of her face was a mess of bruises, the deep red of her lipstick had smeared across her face and mingled with the blood dripping from several wounds, and her hair was slightly askew. When she pushed herself off of the snow damp ground, Harry immediately noted she was careful not to put any weight on her left leg and her hand fell to her ribs on the same side. There was no doubting she was several times worse off than Harry, and yet she made it a point to remain standing at her full height, which was, incidentally, several inches taller than Harry, even missing one heeled shoe.

One sweeping look from head to toe and Harry quickly realized what had likely caused this attack. Though the makeup that hadn't been smeared by fists and blood was artfully done and her figure did look fairly feminine, it was obvious once she was no longer crouched in shadows that the she Harry had been defending, was actually a he.

"Hello."

Shaped eyebrows rose slowly as the drag queen studied Harry just as intently as he was him. "Nice moves, Flash." A deprecating smile finished the look of wary interest. "To what do I owe the pleasure of being your very own damsel in distress?"

Despite being far worse injured than Harry, his hilariously dubbed 'damsel in distress' looked prepared for another fight. It was evident he suspected Harry of being another one of the homophobic pigs that ran all about this place in this time, one who'd thought they were swooping in to save a lovely lady in danger, not a fellow male in drag. Now he was preparing for the fallout, but Harry only cocked his head and gave a tiny shrug.

"Three on one hardly seemed a fair fight. And I wouldn't exactly label you a damsel in distress seeing how you took out that last one." Two sets of eyes glanced over to where purpling bruises could just be seen forming around the only unconscious assailant's throat. "But I'm afraid sir knight in shining armor is a bit of a mouthful, not to mention entirely inappropriate considering I forgot my armor at home, so you can just call me Harry."

He received a slow blink of bemused surprise as the man across from him studied him intently for any sign of mockery then, when he found none, quickly began to reassess the situation. "Ives."

"Pleasure to meet you Ives."

Even as he granted Ives a warm smile, Harry stepped to the side and turned on his heel, the lid still held loosely in his hands swung up and around to meet the jaw of Harry's first victim, the one who had been knocked from the fight due to a broken ankle, just as he attempted to wobble onto his one good leg to, presumably, resume the fight. This time, when he hit the ground, he didn't get back up.

Harry whirled on the only remaining man, his hands were still clutched to his throat as he struggled to draw a proper breath, it would be another minute or so before he full recovered, but Harry wasn't willing to completely count him out as a threat just yet.

"We should go," he decided. "They won't stay down for long. Is there anywhere we can go? Find you some help?"

Harry looked over his shoulder when, several second passed and there was no response, Ives was frowning at him, not in anger or disappointment, but something fairly similar to confusion. Unfortunately, they had far too little time for such introspection.

"Ives," he said sharply. "Did you not hear me? They won't be down for much longer. You're hurt and I only did so well because I caught them off guard, if they decide they want to continue the fight, we might not last a second round. We need to go before it comes to that."

"I have a place." Ives spoke slowly, reluctantly, but at least he was speaking. "It's a few blocks away."

"Are you good on your own or do you need help walking?"

As if it was costing him much to admit, and it probably was, Ives said, "I'll need some help."

With the taller man's arm draped over his shoulder and Harry's around his waist, the two of them hobbled from the alley with as much quickness as Ives' injuries would allow. It was a long way to Ives's safe place, made even longer by their inability to go any faster than a pained shuffle and their constant need to check over their shoulders to ensure they weren't being followed. But make it they did.

"It's that one," Ives was panting for breath and his entire body shook in pain, cold, or both, but a look of intense relief had smoothed some of the tension from his features as he nodded in the direction of the apartment building across the street from them.

It was a task making it up the stairs, but it was accomplished thanks to the dogged determination one was often overcome with when the finish line was in sight. The moment the door to the apartment on the farthest end of the hall swung open, Ives slumped from Harry's grasp and onto the only couch in the main room. He huffed a moan of mingled pain and relief as he yanked the head of blonde hair from his head, allowing his own wig tousled, strawberry curls to flop in a riotous mess around his face.

"Thanks for the help up, Flash. I won't keep you any longer though, I just…I just need to sleep this one off." A wheeze of pain choked him up midsentence, lending the rest of his words a distinct stutter.

"They got you in the ribs." Harry said, ignoring Ives' attempt at seeing him gone. "How bad is it?"

"I can breathe fine, ain't any pressure, so I don't got to worry about them being broken. Bruised maybe, fractured at worst, but I know how to handle them just fine if they are."

"Wrapping fractured ribs alone isn't so easy."

Ives frowned at him, eyes squinted in a confusion and wariness that spoke of distrust. "You offering to help?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't have anywhere else to be."

"Why?"

"Why what?" Harry inquired, purposely obtuse.

"I can understand why you stepped in at the alley, thought I was a lady who needed help, but after, you helped get me here and now you're offering to help patch me up. You want something?"

"No, I don't want anything. I helped you and I'm offering to continue helping you, because, believe it or not, not all humans are terrible creatures. There's no ulterior motive, I'm not trying to trick you, if you want I'll go, but it'd seem an awful waste of my time to have helped you out of the alley and all the way here only to have you die from a punctured lung because you wouldn't let me wrap your ribs for you."

Hesitant interest and maybe even some bit of amusement tried to rob the suspicion from Ives' features. A sound like a snort huffed from between his lips as, gingerly, he pushed himself upright on the couch. "The bandages are in the cabinet above the sink." Long fingers skimmed the buttons adorning the front of a ruined dress. "I'll have to take off my dress, will that make you uncomfortable?"

"Don't worry about me."

There weren't just bandages above the sink, Harry counted dozens of ointments and creams to help with bruising and scarring, bottles of antiseptic, gauze and bandages of all fabrics and sizes, even packets of surgical needles and thread. There was no need for a collection so extensive unless someone was truly accident prone or they'd come to expect altercations such as the one Harry had stepped in on earlier.

"Being a fairy in this city isn't without its dangers."

Harry looked over his shoulder and didn't even blink at the sight of Ives stripped down to a loose pair of cotton briefs. He'd seen more than enough half and fully naked males his age to no longer be even remotely fazed by nudity. It was the awful discoloration of his torso left by heavy boots and fists that caused him to frown.

"How far would they have gone, if I hadn't shown up?"

The sound he received in response was like a laugh, only angry, bitter, _terrified_. "Fellas like that? They would've kept kicking me 'till I was dead."

Harry turned back around, he faced the cabinet so that Ives wouldn't see the hatred he could feel for those men churning like a rancid potion inside his gut. This man could have died tonight, he hadn't done anything, he was a threat to no one, but he was different, and people didn't like _different_.

"Does this happen often?"

There was a moment where Ives didn't answer, where he tried to read the unreadable tone of Harry's voice. Then, "Not often, and never like this. I've been caught before, beat up real bad, but I never found myself in a spot where I couldn't fight my way out or squirm free just long enough to make a run for it. They caught me by surprise, by the time I realized I needed to fight I was already on the ground."

"Fuck them. Cowards." Harry snatched a long cloth bandage from the cabinet and marched over to Ives' side. He'd never wrapped bandages for a fractured rib, but he'd had more than enough experience tending to injuries inflicted upon him by Dudley to have a basic idea of how it went. He was firm with the bandage, making sure it was wrapped tight around the bruised torso, while making sure he wasn't cruelly so.

"Are you like me?"

Harry grunted in wordless confusion as he concentrated on winding the bandage beneath Ives' armpits. But his patient only repeated himself, a little slower and a bit louder, but still lacking any further elaboration.

"I'm like you in a lot of ways, and I'm completely unlike you in others. Why do you ask?"

"This doesn't bother you. Touching me, being near me, even when knowing what I am. Seeing what they did to me makes you angry."

Harry shrugged, unsure of what the right answer would be to a question like that, but willing to give it a try anyway. "You dress the way you do, you step out with the people that you do because it's just a part of who you are. And being you makes you happy, right?"

"Yes."

Harry tucked a pin into the loose end of the bandage, fastening it to the rest, then looked up at Ives. "Then who am I to judge what makes you happy? So long as no one is being hurt or taken advantage of, you have just as much right to purse your happiness as I and any other person in this world does. No one has the right to tell you who to love."

The bandages around his chest creaked in protest at the sudden and deep inhalation that came as response to Harry's vehement words. He looked stunned and maybe he was, but someone needed to let this man know that he wasn't wrong for loving the way he did, that he didn't deserve to fear being beaten and broken and killed for embracing who he was, and he was standing right here so it may as well be him.

"It's a relief knowing that people like you actually exist. Good people." Ives tangled their fingers together then let the palm of his other rest on top, bracketing Harry's inside of his own two, then he squeezed in gratitude. "You never answered my question though."

Humor lent Harry's face a youthfulness it hadn't seen since before the war. "I know."

* * *

There was coffee somewhere after that and small talk that carefully avoided that night's events and anything to do with them. Harry stuck around for far longer than he'd intended to, long enough to see the snow start back up. Ives tried to protest him going home, it was late and cold and those men could still be out there, and while the offer to set up camp on the man's couch was tempting, he kind of missed the comfortable familiarity of his own patchwork home.

"I like you," he told Ives, tightening his thin jacket around himself as he prepared to brave the cold night. "I'll be seeing you again."

The streets were almost completely deserted, at just past three in the morning even the crowds from the dance halls and bars had gone home. It was nearly silent, undoubtedly peaceful, Harry hummed softly to himself as he crunched through the snow, mostly unaffected by the cold thanks to a warming charm.

All things considered, his night had been pretty productive; he'd enjoyed himself at the dance hall, helped keep a man from being murdered in an alley, and formed a tentative friendship with that very same man. And sure he'd made a pact with himself to not go around befriending people in this time, but maybe if he made it a point not to get _too_ close, the separation wouldn't be that hard on him when it was time to go. Besides, who knew how long it would be until he found a way home, he couldn't spend his whole time here depending on his elderly employers and Death to make conversation with. He'd surely be granting the ancient entity his wish to see him go mad if that were the case.

Sleep came easy that night; Harry was untouched by the cold within his shelter, his charms had and would hold up against the bitter cold for weeks longer, and his body, sore from the undue amount of work he'd put it to what with the walking and the fighting and the more walking that came after, sunk into his collection of fabrics and old sheets without any protest. The short period between the moment he lay his head down and the rise of dawn was offendingly brief and forcing himself to rise was probably the most difficult thing he had to do, but taking a peek at his dwindling supply of food and calculating how much smaller his already miniscule paycheck would be if he dared miss even a single day of work was all the motivation he needed to drag himself vertical.

But, if there were one good thing to be said about his early start to the day, it would be that it saw his work ended just as early. Early enough for him to secure a spot on the stairs before his lunch companion had even left the deli.

"You look as if you've had a long day and it's not even noon."

Harry only just refrained from frowning as he accepted his sandwich from the man and tore into the delicate paper. "My day's been all right, it was the night that was long."

The tomato on the sandwich, a new addition to his usual plain fare, was fresh enough to be mistaken as ripe from the vine. The pale juice trickled down his wrist at the first bite and, when once he would have wiped it carelessly across the leg of his trousers, now he prevented any waste by quickly slurping it up.

"I miss the days when I was so young. Staying out until the sun rose to drink and dance and charm beautiful woman."

Harry laughed. Drinking and dancing and charming beautiful women wasn't exactly how his night had gone, but it was close enough not to merit a correction.

"I think I'll keep away from that sort of fun from now on. I don't think I'm fit for late night adventures anymore."

"Please." The man's scoff was full of amused derision. "You are young still. Nothing about you is _unfit_."

"You would be surprised. Sometimes I feel much older than I am."

"You cannot claim any such feeling until your knees begin to creak whenever you try to stand and your bones protest everything from ascending a staircase to the irritable weather."

"All right, well you do have me beat there."

Harry's concession was met by a rueful laugh that saw the wrinkles framing his companions eyes deepen. "It is a shallow victory. But if you do not enjoy dancing and debauchery, what do you do for fun?"

Harry shrugged. "Not much really. I spend a lot of time here," the hand not gripping his sandwich gestured in the direction of the library behind him, "catching up on all of the reading I was too lazy to do in school"

"Not a particularly motivated student?"

"Not even close." Exasperated nostalgia curled his lips as he recalled all of the hours he and Ron had wasted while at Hogwarts. "I was much more interested in causing my professors and headmaster grief than in doing any sort of learning."

"I think that must be the norm for most children. Though, I myself was a bit of an anomaly, I knew how privileged I was to be attending so I took it much more seriously than my peers."

Funnily enough, it should have been much the same in Harry's case. He should have seen Hogwarts as the grand opportunity that it was, he had been upgraded from the drab existence of Stonewall High to an honest to goodness magic school. He was certain any other person in his predicament would have thrown themselves into their studies with a bit more passion that he had, Hermione was a prime example of such a person, but once the novelty of magic and the like had worn off, he'd joined Ron, who had grown up comfortable in the knowledge that magic existed, in shirking all of his duties as a student. Looking back on it now, he wished he would have shown even the slightest bit more initiative, maybe joined Hermione in doing some serious studying outside of those nights before exams where he frantically tried to absorb several weeks' worth of knowledge in a few insufficient hours.

"I think I'd like to start those days over," he said quietly. "When things were so easy."

"That must be everyone's dream. To get one more chance at doing it right."

But Harry actually had the chance to do that. To reach into his past and correct all that he had done wrong, if only he could figure out the proper way to do so.

The other man was watching Harry, cataloguing each emotion he knew he was shit at hiding, and when he offered a change of subject, it was snatched up gratefully. "What do you read when you are in there?"

He shrugged. "Whatever I want. Yesterday it was the last war and all that led to this one."

A gray eyebrow raised in interest. "What did you learn?"

"That Hitler, like most men like him, didn't rise from nothing. He didn't just show up from nowhere and charm a well rounded, stable country into going to war with the rest of the world." Harry was down to the last few bites of his sandwich which he contemplated heavily as he spoke, he was full to bursting but he couldn't bring himself to waste it. "Germany was on the wrong side of the last war and they paid heavily for it, they are _still_ paying heavily for it. All because of that treaty."

"The Treaty of Versailles," the man offered.

"Yes, that one. The Treaty of Versailles which was, from what I can tell, drawn up with very little input on Germany's part, stripped them to a fraction of their size, did away with much of their military, and imposed upon them a very heavy obligation to pay reparations for all damage caused by the war. They were defeated, humiliated, and in a financial crisis. Hitler must have seemed like a godsend to the German people in those early days, as charming and confident as he was with honeyed words and false promises of building a better world in which they would no longer be poor and weak and looked down upon for past mistakes, but one in which they would be the superior race. Stronger men have fallen for less."

"You do not think Germany is in the wrong then?"

Harry frowned. "I think a distinction has to be made between the government and the people. The government most certainly is in the wrong, Hitler is probably among one of the most evil men I've ever heard of." And that included Voldemort. "But I think the German people are victims just as much as those Hitler and his crew have turned their guns toward. Perhaps even more so because much of the world doesn't see it that way, they're comfortable lumping the whole lot of them together."

"You're familiar with war, but I can't understand how." Harry's companion wasn't looking directly at him, his gaze was fixed just past him, but Harry still felt pinned by the focus he had on him. "You can't be old enough to have seen the effects of the Great War and there wasn't much conflict in the world between the wars."

"I'm not as familiar with them as you might be, I've never seen a war large enough to span continents." Harry hesitated, taking a moment to choose his words wisely. His companion was exceptionally smart and he knew the man would spot any falsehoods in his words. "But wars can come in different forms, different sizes. And though what I went through was much different than this war now, it was still fully capable of seeing my parents taken from me before I ever had the chance to know them."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I survived." Harry shrugged. "Not being allowed to know them hurt, but it also made things easier. You can't miss what you can't remember, right? And by the time I was old enough to understand what I was missing out on, I'd already begun to build my own patchwork family. They were small, mismatched, but I loved them just as fiercely as I would anyone borne to my blood."

"Where are they now?"

That last bite was ash in his mouth. No matter how much he loved himself a cold cut sandwich and how loathe he was to waste any food nowadays, food just wasn't palatable when he was reminiscing on the touchy subject of his family.

"Gone." Was what he finally settled on. "I lost them after the conflict and the death. When I thought it was finally time for peace."

"And now it is just you?"

Harry's head dips in a shallow nod. "Now it is just me."

Bound to an amortal being and living just around the corner from perhaps one of the largest magical gathering points in the country and it was still _just him_. It was just him slumming it in a New York alley, making less than a living in a store that reminded him too much of home, and wasting the rest of his daylight in library searching for a solution he wasn't sure even existed. It was just him with the occasional interruption from a kind man with a sandwich or a bloodied cross dresser in an alley, and while each encounter added some modicum of light to his day, neither were enough.

"I have to go."

The abruptly spoken words caused the older man, who had until then been finding some unprecedented interest in what was left of his own lunch, to look to him in surprise. "So soon?"

"Yes." Harry rose and quickly brushed the crumbs of his sandwich from his lap. "I'm sorry, but I need a walk. To clear my head."

He didn't look happy, but Harry's companion nodded. "Of course. I will see you tomorrow?"

"Yes, I will see you tomorrow."

Harry cast a glance up the staircase, only a moment was spared contemplating heading into the library before it was decided against. Another day spent crouched over old books wearing away his teeth at the end of a quill would see the last of his energy evaporated in a matter of minutes. So he pretended not to be staggering under the weight of exhaustion that was growing to be just as mental as it was physical, as he trotted down to the street. Even after he merged himself with the growing lunch crowd he could feel the press of a wire rimmed gaze following him up until the moment he turned the corner.

He walked where the flow of the crowd was heaviest, the thought of visiting his few haunts was dissatisfying so he allowed the natives to lead him around the city for the time being. There was a lot to be found in the area surrounding the library; museums that spanned whole blocks, theaters proudly proclaiming each show to be put on once dusk fell, hotels that stood taller than many of the surrounding buildings and teemed with the well to do and their entourage. The park was where he finally decided to detach from the pack though, a decision made mostly due to the fuss his aching feet were making. The benches that could be seen from the street reeled him in before he truly even noticed he was moving in the direction.

There weren't any signs to be immediately spotted to inform him of where he was, but the sheer enormity of the place was enough to clue him in on the fact that he had wandered all the way to Central Park. It was well populated considering it was the middle of the weekday, but not so much so that Harry had any trouble finding himself a place to sit. The solid wooden bench didn't so much as creak when he threw himself onto it, heaving with a bone deep tiredness, the day had been long and it was barely even half over.

Most of his weariness though didn't even come from the long night he'd had, sure his muscles ached a little from overuse and his eyes were a bit itchy from too little sleep, but majority came from the conversation that had been unsettling enough to put him off his sandwich.

There had been no ill intent behind any of the words Harry and his companion had exchanged, that much even he could acknowledge. It was only meant to be an easy way to pass the time between their first and last bites of lunch, but Harry couldn't help but resent the other man for steering what had begun as an easy enough conversation into much darker territories with only a few curious questions. Now Harry was left, once again, picking at the festering wound of his displacement. It seemed the longer he was in this time and the longer he went without finding anything among the books of the library, the easier it was to send him sinking into homesick misery, of which it seemed to be harder to pull himself out of each time.

It had been four weeks and four days. And each of those days, minutes, and seconds had been elongated tenfold by his aching desire to be _not here_ and the amount of effort he was putting to maintain the façade of normalcy he needed to keep up until he was no longer a wizard living surrounded by muggles. It was the latter especially that made each day a struggle, because even though over half of his life had been spent not knowing it, he was a wizard. Even in the days when the word magic was just another word never to be spoken in the Durlsey's household, he had never actively tried to repress what he was and could do, on the contrary, he had secretly embraced his strangeness. Now, so far from home and with a foreign power trying to make itself at home within his body, so much of his energy was being spent trying to quell his urge to cast and curse and simply revel in the innate power within him. Warming charms and weak anti-muggle wards weren't enough to assuage the itch he felt in the crease of his palm, where his wand fit best, and in times like this, when he was drowning in misery, he was struck by the urge to be surrounded by magic. More than that, he was struck by the urge to _do_ magic.

And usually it wasn't so bad that he couldn't ignore it, but something this time was different, the conversation had struck a chord within him, and now the urge was immutable. So he acted on it.

No one noticed the too thin, improperly dressed for this weather figure step into the first patch of trees. He wandered for a while, exhaustion forgotten in the face of this new purpose, he was in a public park and it was no easy task finding a place well removed from any park goers. But he found it in time and secured it with the same spells that protected his home in the alley.

The first spell to leave his wand was weak, a cutting curse too mild to even split the bark of the tree he'd been aiming for, the next was better and called for a shield charm to protect him from the shards of splintered wood that clouded the air for a moment.

He'd fought in a war, but the number of destructive spells in his arsenal were surprisingly few; blasting charms, cutting curses, incendiary spells. But once those had run their course the basics of what he'd learned before dropping out of Hogwarts to hunt soul fragments did just fine, because he wasn't looking for destruction and chaos, he wanted only _this_. The freeing sensation of not holding back, not hiding who he was both born and grown to be.

In the woods of Central Park, trees uprooted and flipped root over branch, shrunk to barely the size of a finger before expanding once more and changing from hues of earthy brown and vibrant green to eclectic blues and eye-watering yellows. There was no order to what was being done, Harry had no plan, he simply cast and reveled in the sensation. And if a wondrous grin stretched cheeks damp with salt, well, he wasn't one to be ashamed of the emotion, because he had missed this and he missed _home_.

* * *

For all that wizards claimed to be superior to those without magic, the ordeals of the past years had proved that, of their two peoples, they were the weaker. A plague, though severe and widespread and unlike one seen for thousands of years, had done well to cripple much of the European magical population before spreading to the States and several countries within Asia. Magical borders in Australia, Africa, and South America had been closed indefinitely, and while that didn't prevent those fleeing the disease stricken countries from stepping onto their soil, it barred them from entering any portion of the magical communities, the hospitals included, preventing the risk of exposure and infection.

And even as they battled the disease that killed indiscriminately and responded to none of their treatments, the magical communities of Europe were facing the very real threat of discovery by the muggle world. A solution for wards that continued to fall and protections that failed to protect had not been found, the best that could be done was the placement of weak, short term wards around smaller enclaves and family homes, wards that provided less protection but that could be recast every day. While teams of ward constructors remained on standby in larger magical hubs such as St. Mungos, Diagon Alley, and the Ministry in case of sudden failure. It was imperfect and impermanent, but the best that could be done when resources were stretched so thin and so much energy being thrown toward finding some peace with their muggle counterparts.

The world outside of their own was advancing, there were technologies now that could capture damning images and transmit them to another server halfway across the world in less time than it would take for an obliviator to come knocking. Muggles knew of them now, and what was more, they had _proof_ , so even those who hadn't seen with their own eyes what their wards were no longer hiding were much easier to convince than ever before. And worse yet, they were making connections. Inferior as wizards may claim them to be, muggles weren't unintelligent, they were linking past encounters and disasters with wizards that hadn't been covered up quite as well as they could be to the attack in the country, to the dragon loosed in the mountains. The number of those who suspected their existence were still among the minority, but without direct intervention from _both_ the muggle and magical government those numbers would continue to grow until they became a very real threat to the Statute of Secrecy. But amends had yet to be made with the muggle government, a rift had been forced between the two factions and it seemed as if there was nothing to be done to fix it.

This was a time of crisis. Europe's population of magical folks and creatures was larger than any others', they had direct links to each continent and every government, if they were discovered, if they fell, the rest of their world would not be far behind.

Fortunately, there was one with a solution.

He did not belong. That much was evident the moment he entered the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. He entered through the phone booth with a girl who stood bedraggled and barely upright, the both of them ignored the security wizard and his request to see their wands and continued to the center of the atrium, where the fountain of magical brethren had once resided. On the edges of the crowd several law enforcement wizards had noticed their presence and had begun to approach, but the man only smiled and the girl only cowered. And when they were close, too close, he drew an object, short and cylindrical save for the grip in which he held it and pointed it to the girl. As if commanded by unspoken words, her eyes closed, her head tilted back, and she _wailed._

There was a wave of energy so powerful all who were unprepared, which meant all but the man and his conduit were thrown from their feet. The polished floor began to warp and crack and those too close arched their bodies in unimaginable pain as their bones vibrated with enough force to crumble.

For a moment that could be mistaken for a lifetime it went on, and then there was a word of whispered praise and the girl fell silent and the world went still once again. The man stood smug as he surveyed his destruction, the motion of his head turning side to side sent jagged shards of light reflecting from the lens settled against only one eye.

All attention was on him and so he spoke. "I am Wolfgang von Strucker, and I bring your salvation."

* * *

 **A/N: So sorry for the long wait, I hadn't even realized it had been so long since my last update. But in my absence I've been working plenty on this story so hopefully the next update won't take near as long.**

 **I exist on Tumbr and Facebook, come say hi!**


	6. Chapter 6

Harry liked being in the park. It was nice. Peaceful. So far into the trees it was easy to pretend, if only for a moment, that he wasn't in New York and it wasn't nineteen forty, but rather it's 2007 and he's in the Forest of Dean. He's only wandered away from the tent to get away from Ron and Hermione's bickering/flirting and find some quiet for himself. It smelled just like it did in the Forest of Dean, woodsy and wet, the air had the same bite of mid-winter, and now that the sun had set, it even sort of looked like it.

None of that made it easier being there, but it was still nice to pretend for a little bit.

From where he lay, Harry could almost see the shape of the stars, peeking down at him through the wide gap of leafless branches, the silence around him was heavy, comforting, more than he'd had since migrating to New York. The sparse bit of snow on the ground had long since begun to seep through his clothing and chill the backs of his limbs and torso, it was uncomfortable, but not unbearable, so he didn't move, he didn't rise from his spread eagle sprawl or even briefly contemplate making the trek back home because he didn't want to. Not yet. He wanted to hold onto this moment, this brief period of peace for as long as he was allowed.

The explosion of anger and emotion and magic had done him well. He felt better, he felt lighter, the suffocating misery that had been pressing in on him from all sides had passed. He was self aware enough to know it wouldn't last forever, there would be more moments of loneliness and doubt, but he would deal with them as they came and he wouldn't allow his resolve to crumble when they did. Because he was getting home, one way or another, he was resourceful and stubborn enough to see it done.

He would make it home and he would stop himself from uniting the Hallows and he would defeat Voldemort a second time over and when that was done he could finally _breathe_. He could take a vacation, a _long_ one, maybe even come back here to New York to see it without the taint of misery and war ruining the experience. And after, he could finish school, he could apply to become an Auror or join a Quidditch team, hell he could spend every day doing _nothing_ if that's what he wanted, the Potter and Black vaults would certainly allow for that. He didn't have to decide now though, or tomorrow, or the day he returned to his present, or any of the days following, because he would have _time_ , all the time he wanted to decide, or at least all of the time a normally lengthed lifetime would allow. He just had to be strong for a while longer.

* * *

Harry slept in the forest that night, just because he could, and he slept well because of it. When he woke there was no lingering unrest or exhaustion, he felt prepared for the day, perhaps even _eager_ for it. Mrs. Aronoff was infected by his mood, she smiled more than she ever had with him and spoke extensively of her sons as he worked with an unprecedented buoyancy to his movements.

The woman behind the fruit stand was as well, _she_ didn't smile (she never did), but she tsked in warning whenever his hand strayed too close to an apple that had been carefully arranged to hide the places where it was peeling and bruised.

His friend with the sandwich was not.

He arrived with only one sandwich in hand, a shiny black automobile waiting for him at the curb, and the hurried explanation that _important business had come up_. _It was urgent, needed his attention immediately, he would be unable to sit in for their usual meal._

Harry was disappointed and he knew he did a poor job of masking it. He didn't particularly want to resume yesterday's conversation, he was in no hurry to disrupt the good mood he found himself in, but he also wasn't all that excited by the prospect of taking lunch alone, he'd come to enjoy the easy company.

"You could come with me, if you'd like."

Of course the man had noticed his disappointment, nothing about Harry was subtle. The offer, however, _was_ a surprise. Come with him? The man who was only a week's worth of sandwich's and talks of war past being a stranger. It was common sense not to get into a car with a stranger. Even if the stranger had a kind smile and an enticing sandwich. _Especially_ then. But Harry could hold his own if something went down, couldn't he? And something within him wanted to trust this man.

"Yes. Where are we going?"

"I have two jobs." Was the explanation Harry received as he entered the car. "One pays, one does not, but they are both equally important. We are headed to the one that does not pay."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a doctor. I lend my expertise to the rich and the intelligent who wish to see the world become better, when I am not with them I help those too poor or too sick to see a doctor.

"We won't be going far today, only just up the road a ways."

Not far was almost an hour's drive spent in silence. Past streets, buildings, and landmarks Harry, who'd never really left his comfortable corner of the city, no longer recognized. Into parts of the city more run down and derelict than even the rat colonized, rubbish infested alley he took shelter in.

When industrial buildings and storefronts made slow way to row houses and tenement buildings, the car, so out of place in the way it shone bright and new and wealthy even in the weak sunlight, slowed to navigate the tight streets before rolling to a full stop.

"This is Brooklyn?"

"Yes, Flatbush." There was a pop of knees spent folded in one position for too long and Harry's companion sighed, relieved as he stretched contracted muscles on the sidewalk. Once suitably recovered from the long car ride, he nodded to the building closest to them, it was identical to the two flanking it, save for the four numbers peeling over the arched entryway.

"We go to the top and to the back."

The woman waiting for them five flights up looked made of sharp edges and hollow bird bones except for where her stomach protruded strangely, full with a child prepared to join the world any day now. Shadows not caused by the windows too dirty to filter through anything more than the most tenacious rays of sun added unneeded depth to her cheeks, her collarbones and beneath her eyes. She was frail with hunger and grief and too much hard work, but she was beautiful in that, even when weighted with child and fatigue, she smiled waveringly, but sincerely and met both men with a steel grip and a gaze that promised pain if they made her regret inviting them into her home.

"She's asleep, been down for a few hours." The apartment was cramped, tiny, with a living room that doubled as a kitchen and a bedroom with a door that didn't even sit properly on the hinges. There was a girl in the actual bedroom, curled on the flimsy mattress in the corner, she was sweat soaked and fever flushed but it seemed as if every quilt and blanket that could be found in the apartment was piled on top of her.

"Ms. Walker down the hall used to be a nurse, she said it looked like strep and that I should see a doctor for her as soon as I could. But I can't afford a day off, there'd be no food to bring home and no apartment to come home to, and the amount they were asking is beyond what I have. So she gave me some home remedies and has been keeping an eye on her while I worked. But it's been almost a month and last night she got worse, was up until the early hours wailing loud enough to raise her Pa from his grave."

The little girl's limbs were stiff, difficult to manipulate, under the doctors touch, with joints irregularly shining and so swollen she could barely bend her elbow or roll her ankles.

Tools were unpacked swiftly from a leather satchel and used to measure her fever, her heartbeat, the irregular pattern of her breathing. Lights shone in her eyes and mouth, checking for responsiveness and the tell-tale features of strep throat.

"She fell asleep when?"

"Early morning, seven maybe. The first few hours she woke once or twice, was disoriented when she did, but she hasn't stirred in a good three hours."

"It's not strep. Not anymore." Two needles and two vials of clear liquid were retrieved from the bag, the older man's hands remained steady as he filled each needle before injecting their contents into the crook of the girl's elbow. "It's rheumatic fever now. That was penicillin to help fight off the bacteria and aspirin to try and bring that swelling down some. But we must get her to a hospital, with proper equipment and medicines, immediately. She's gone untreated too long, her heart's begun to fail."

Grey eyes half hidden behind rounded spectacles found Harry, where he'd been lingering uncertain but out of the way at the door of the bedroom. "I'll need your help on this part, we need to get her down to the street."

"Of course."

The girl weighed nothing in his arms, even after five flights of stairs, but the alarming heat her small body was letting off and the random jerks of her arms and head made her presence a constant point of awareness for him. The car hadn't moved from the curb in the quarter of an hour they'd been gone, the unnamed driver was still seated behind the wheel, but a woman in a simple grey dress had made herself comfortable in the passenger's seat of the car. No one acknowledged her presence, not even the doctor questioned what she was doing in his car, and for a moment Harry assumed it was because she was there to lend aid to the girl. But they pulled away from the curb, the car angled towards the closest hospital twenty minutes away, and not a word was spoken to the woman or a glance spared in her direction, so Harry looked again and, this time, he actually _saw_.

There was no proof, but after one real look, he understood, she wasn't acknowledged because she wasn't there, she couldn't be seen just as Death couldn't be seen by anyone but him.

"You're his protégé, the one with the Heart in your soul." Her eyes were wide and dark and made incredibly unnerving by the fact that she didn't blink once. "I'm Tamiel. I've come for the girl, but it's a pleasant surprise to meet you."

She was, in whatever way, one of Death's, Harry could feel it in her aura, in the way something inside him reached for her. So perhaps, in some ways, she was his.

"Don't take her." He spoke softly, but neither the doctor nor the mother heard, so engrossed were they in ensuring the girl was comfortable. "Please."

Tamiel frowned. "I have to. You know that. She lived the time she was allotted, anymore would cause upset."

"She's too young."

"She is, isn't she? She must have been an extraordinary soul to have fulfilled her purpose here so quickly. I can't wait to see it."

Harry jerked in tandem with the girl when Tamiel reached back and splayed her fingers over her sternum. Her fingers bore down, they would have broken skin if she were tangible, they corkscrewed one way, then another, then drew back sharply. A light came with it bright and beautiful and shining with a rainbow of colors Harry couldn't even name.

"I was right." Tamiel's entire demeanor shifted with an unspeakable joy as she looked at the light, the _soul._ "She's extraordinary."

She was gone after that, and Harry was left to watch as the car's occupants realized that the little girl curled in her mother's lap had gone. There was a single wail of despair and a barely audible sigh of distress. But Harry remained still and so silent it looked almost as if he too had stopped breathing. Because as the life drained from the body now absent a soul, something in Harry stirred and it rejoicedat what he'd just witnessed. The part of him that was Death suddenly felt _powerful_.

The girl and her mother were dropped at the hospital where the body would be properly dealt with. Harry kept quiet throughout the entire painful process of seeing them off and for a large portion of the ride back to their side of town. His entire body buzzed with a deadly energy that could only derive from the Hallows, he could barely repress the shudder that wanted to quake him like a windblown leaf and sitting on his hands was the only way to stop their perpetual trembling.

"I wasn't aware how critical the child's condition was, if I had I wouldn't have exposed you to more death. I'm sorry."

The soft leather of the car seat squeaked with the shift of Harry's body. "Don't apologize. If I spent the entirety of my life trying to run from Death, I would have a very exhausting existence. It can't be avoided."

"No, maybe not. But that doesn't make it any less tragic." The doctor sighed another of his tired sighs, he slid his glasses from his nose and carefully cleaned the lenses with the hem of his shirt, more out of a need for something to do rather than for real visibility. "A year ago, a happier woman would have been hard to find. That family, that beautiful young woman and her precocious child, were _whole_ , alive in all of the ways that mattered. They didn't live in those slums. Her husband had not been lost to gunfire or mortars across the sea, her daughter was not suffering from a disease that is so easily treated. Now she and her husband and her daughter and the child growing within her are just another family destroyed by a war they never asked for."

"No one ever asks for it." Harry shrugged, exhausted even as he was wired from the strange energy running through him, but far too used to the cloying misery that succeeded death to be jarred by it. "No one but those who are evil."

"Who was your evil?"

"My evil?"

His companion nodded. "A sickness, a war, a man. Something made you suffer."

Harry's bottom lip rolled between his teeth as he observed the man beside him. They were strangers still but this awful, miserable experience had allowed him to see a side of the man that there short visits hadn't allowed. He wasn't with Harry because he wanted something from him, he didn't ask because he wished to use the information against him one day. He just wanted to know. So he told him.

"A man. My evil was a man. One much like Hitler actually, he drew people to him because he was charming and knew just the right things to say. He too was obsessed with lineage and he was willing to go to great and horrible lengths to see only his version of the perfect race thrive."

"I've not heard of anyone like him."

Harry shook his head. "You wouldn't have. My war wasn't like this one, it wasn't between countries and enormous powers. It was small, between only a few communities, but that didn't make it any less devastating."

"You lost your family."

"Yes, much of them. A part of me misses it though. It sounds awful and not a moment fighting was one that could be considered happy, but when I was at war I had purpose, I had no concerns other than surviving one more fight. Always one more. With it gone, that part, though small and dormant most days, is lost, helpless."

There was something in the man's eyes, a spark of some sort of intrigue, maybe hope, that made Harry fall silent, curious to see what he had to say in response.

"You would want it back? That purpose?"

That hadn't at all been what he was expecting. "That isn't…are you being hypothetical?"

He received a small smile and a shake of the head. "The rich and intelligent men and women I said I worked with, the ones who seek to make the world a better place, together we are working on a project to take men like you, good men, and make them great."

A furrow carved its way between Harry's brow. "And what do you intend to do with these men?"

"End this war. Prevent another mother, father, wife, daughter, from feeling the pain that we've endured."

"You want me to be a soldier."

The doctor slid closer to Harry, suddenly eager to make him understand. "You would be no ordinary soldier, you would be more."

"How would we achieve that?"

"Through the miracles of science and modern medicine."

Considering Harry was sixty years in the past, he doubted any of their medicine would pass as _modern_ to him. "Some sort of…drug?"

"Serum. I have been working to develop this for years."

"It's completed? Tested already?"

That gave the man pause, though not for long. "Not complete, not yet. We had only one test subject and it failed even when it succeeded. I find that it lacks a certain…balance. But once I have found it, through the help of those like you, we could restore peace."

"Men like me…" Harry faltered, saddened, unsure. "You're wrong. I'm not great, I'm not good."

Something akin to surprise crossed his companions features, then gentle amusement. "I did not tell you," he said, "but I saw you that day with the girl and the man who thought terrible things of her because of her differences. I saw how you shamed him, drove him off, even as others looked away, even as others _approved._ And though when I approached, it was not with the intention of extending this offer, I still hoped. And when we spoke, of this war, of your war, of our lives, I _knew._ You are good. You are great."

"Maybe so." Harry's fingers twisted in his grip. "Maybe you're right. Or maybe I am. But either way, it doesn't matter. I would have to fight….I'm sorry, I can't. I can't fight anymore."

The speed with which the doctor wilted made guilt curdle in Harry's stomach. But he had a purpose already, he had to get home. He couldn't put that off to help fight a war he knew they would win without his aid.

Neither of them spoke again, not until the landmarks around them once again became familiar and the car was cruising along the street that would lead to the library. When they stopped only a few meters away from the familiar set of stairs, Harry reached for the door immediately and swung it open, but he hesitated for just a moment before leaving.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you." He spoke without turning to face the man. "I wish I could be different. I wish I could be the man you think I am."

"I don't. I respect your decision, I _understand_ it, and I would never wish for you to be anyone other than who you already are. Whoever that might be."

Harry couldn't help but laugh at that, all the times they've spoken and they never once shared names. "That would be Harry. I'm Harry."

"Harry. I am Abraham Erskine." Abraham smiled with no ounce of disappointment or resentment. "Will I see you tomorrow, Harry?"

"Yes, you will."

* * *

Harry was used to being hungry. His pitiful meals, insubstantial even with his daily dose of cheese, meat, and fresh baked bread, allowed for nothing else. He was used to being tired. The menial but back breaking task of hefting crates of vegetables several hours a day, seven of seven days a week wore away the little energy his meager caloric intake was able to produce. He was used to being cold. Used to always being not quite dry despite numerous anti-damp spells. He was used to these menial discomforts, they'd become a reluctantly accepted part of his existence and, so long as his ribs remained only a vague shadow rather than a clear imprint against his chest, so long as he had enough in him to keep himself standing upright, and so long as his extremities continued without the distinctive blue hue of oncoming frost bite, then they would _remain_ menial discomforts.

But then he watched the girl die and simply being in proximity of the act of death saw him renewed.

The hunger was gone. No more quiet ache of exhaustion. If he hadn't known any better, he could have mistaken himself for the Harry of two years ago, comfortable within the halls of Hogwarts, if not fully happy then at least safe, warm, fed. And he knew it was because of the girl and whatever twisted connection his newly Hallowed soul had with Death and dying.

It was awful, but it was also exhilarating. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel whole and human and he didn't want to forget again. Even if it meant being near it again, witnessing it again.

It would be far too easy to become addicted to the feeling.

* * *

The girl was rendered unconscious and bound to her seat, the man was allowed to remain aware and unbound only because these backwards people still didn't fully understand, of the two, who held the real power. They were in the largest courtroom of the Ministry, which also so happened to be the most intimidating, and upon the raised dais encircling the room were wizards and witches of all backgrounds and ethnicities, any country with a significant magical presence had sent the representatives of their governments to oversee the proceedings within the courtroom.

In their time of crisis, the acting Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had been retired and replaced by the full body of the Wizengamot whom answered and reported directly to the ICW. They had reached such times where one wizard could no longer be expected to shoulder the full burden of the disaster upon them.

Babajide Akingbade of Uganda, the current Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, took the place of honor at the head of the courtroom and, once all representatives had settled into their seats, wasted no time in addressing their only conscious intruder.

"You are muggle."

Strucker blinked, then frowned, then bowed his head in a false attempt at humility. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"A muggle," the word was spat, not with disgust, but incredulity. Disbelief that this man with no magical background was able to breach their most hallowed halls. "There is no magic within you or your immediate ancestry."

"Magic as is in the supposedly inconceivable power that can be harnessed within?" A saccharine smile, sweet as rotten fruit, exposed Strucker's teeth. "Perhaps you would be correct in assuming I have no such power within me. But that does not mean I am completely without it, as my Aliana only just proved."

"You are not one of us," Akingbade amended firmly. "You should not have been able to enter."

"Yes, well, you've all been so focused on the protections outright falling, you failed to notice those that only weakened, not much, but enough to allow men such as myself to exploit them."

"Why did you come?"

"Because my people have been watching you and yours for decades, trying to understand who and what you were. We'd been unsuccessful until only very recently. When your magic began to fail and your secrecy became threatened, it was an easy task to collect a few of your unsuspecting folk and learn what we needed from them. Your race is threatened, your people are dying, you will be extinct in a century, a century and a half, perhaps, if you're careful. But continuing on as you are now you will all see your end soon."

Akingbade was unimpressed, when he spoke again he merely repeated his earlier words with ten times the ferocity. " _Why did you come?"_

"I have a proposition for you."

There was a rumble around the room, a short outburst of disbelief and amusement, this muggle dared come into their Ministry, wreak havoc on their halls, and then offer them a _deal?_ He was surely insane.

However, Strucker was unfettered in the face of their derision. "We two have a common enemy, muggles you call them, and the government they look up to as if they are gods. Because of them our world has fallen to war and ruin. Help me destroy them and I will usher in a new world order where you and yours no longer need cower in fear of those inferior to you."

"Who are you to make such promises?" It was clear Akingbade was not remotely convinced, a quick look around confirmed that his colleagues were of the same mindset. "What makes you so certain you would be successful in bringing down the muggles? And why would you even want to? They are your people."

"They are." Strucker nodded. "But they are sick, flawed to their core. Every day my people are lost to starvation and war, poverty and hatred and it is because those elected to preside over them do not have the nerve to do what must be done. If we want this world to prosper, those rotten in the bunch must be done away with. My organization and I are willing to see that done, we're willing to do it ourselves, for the good of all. It cannot be done alone though."

"And you assume we would help you? Why? Why when we could cut out the hassle of a second player in the game and rid the world of the rotten muggles ourselves?"

"If it could be done, you would have done so long ago rather than cower behind your steadily weakening wards." Strucker shifted in his seat and the chains that had not yet bound him moved along with him, a clear threat. " _Neither_ of us can do this alone. If we want to see those who hold this world back from it's potential eradicated, then we must work together. Your people are powerful, far more powerful than those who oppose you, but you are few and fewer every day, you might find success in ending the governments of your enemies, but the people would rise up and destroy you, not because they are stronger, but because there are many more.

"On the other side, my organization has enough men at their command to keep any who might overthrow the current leader in power long enough to make some sort of difference. But we are not yet at a place where we could actually overthrow those leaders. We could cause unrest, eliminate many important figures, but it would not be enough to topple a government, let alone the multiple ones needed to be ended in order for this coup to be successful.

"So you see, where one is incapable the other is astoundingly _able._ If we were to join our forces it could be done."

A soft murmur had begun to build among the crowd of wizards, a murmur that almost sounded considering, but Akingbade held his hand up, silencing them at once. "Your offer comes at an interesting time. We are close to war and here you are offering a convenient solution. It smells of a trap, and we are not in a place where we can afford to risk the lives and safety of able bodied fighters."

"You would not need to, the weak and sick will do just fine. This disease plaguing you, I've seen what it's done, what it's taken." One of Strucker's pale hands reached out to stroke through the hair of the girl still unconscious beside him. "Aliana was once one of you, talented, powerful, her illness stripped her of that potential, that one thing that made her special. But I gave it back."

"No. Returning a wizard's magic once it has been taken by the plague is not possible." Akingbade was flush with anger at just the thought of it. "You, a muggle, could never achieve what some of are best were unable to."

"I should have been more specific." Strucker amended. "I cannot return her ability to cast as she once could, that is likely gone forever, but she was not fully stripped of her spark, and with it I was able to create something new, something that, with the right tools, could grow to be more than you all have ever been capable of."

"Who gave you this right?" the representative for the French Ministry, Sabine Moreau, rose from her seat, anger contorting her otherwise beautiful face. "Perhaps you were successful in granting her some form of magic back, but she and her magic were not yours to meddle. You are not one of us."

Strucker laughed with a malicious sort of humor. "If I and my colleagues kept away from all that is not ours by right, we would not be the force we are today. Some toes must be trod upon for the sake of progress. If you can find the strength to get over your bruised toes you can ensure the survival of your race.

"I don't need much, as many wizards who have lost their power to this disease and a few healthy ones, for research."

Moreau rounded on the Supreme Mugwump who had gone uncharacteristically silent. "Akingbade, the fact that we have entertained this horrible man for so long is insulting." Those around the woman nodded their agreement. "To hand over our own to a muggle who wishes to strip them down and expose the secrets of our magic is blasphemy. It is the one thing that should not ever be considered."

"Without me, you all die." Strucker spoke calmly despite the mounting hostility within the room. "Without you, I will find another way to see it done. But it would be much easier and far more beneficial for the both of us if you were to agree. You have everything to gain from this proposition and so little to lose."

"You, who has not lived a single day among our people, know nothing of what we would lose," Moreau spat.

"Enough." Akingbade's gaze was solemn as he surveyed the outraged wizards and witches. "We are in dire times. No option can be overlooked." There was another rumble of protest that was quelled with only one glare from the Supreme Mugwump. "We will take three days to discuss, debate, and decide. Three days only and you will have our answer."

The answer was yes, it was always going to be yes despite the uproarious protests.

Two days later, the worst victims of the disease with no visitors and no family to miss them were transferred to a facility across the sea and their work was started.

* * *

 **A/N: Anyone still here? It's been some time, I know, I don't think it's ever taken me so long to update a story in all the years I've been publishing on this site. There's a whole laundry list of reasons excusing my absence, but it really boils down to the fact that what I had planned for this story really just wasn't working. So I took time, too much time, to re-evaluate just about everything I knew. But now I have a new plan, a solid one that I'm about ninety-five prevent certain I'll be able to stick to, so now I can continue actually writing and producing chapters without a whole four plus month wait.**

 **I'm still on Tumblr and somewhat on Facebook under my penname. Plus I have a shiny new Twitter account! Follow me so I'm not tweeting to no one!**


	7. Chapter 7

The energy didn't diminish with sleep. The night passed and Harry prepared to leave for the grocers but the disconcerting power whose tang of death lingered at the back of his throat remained writhing just beneath his skin. He wanted some way to shake it off, so he left for his work earlier than usual, eager to see if the hours of physical labor might do the trick. But the doors were locked and the windows dark and it took nearly five minutes of steady knocking before he received an answer.

Mr. Aronoff met him at the back door, in the same clothing Harry had left him in the previous afternoon and with a rim of red encircling each eye. He'd been mourning, it didn't take much to guess what, only who.

It was the youngest, Jerome; he'd been gone for nearly two weeks but the telegram had only just arrived the evening before. The store would be closed for a week, maybe more, while they tried to recover from the loss. Despite his protests Mr. Aronoff forced a handful of bills at Harry, two weeks' worth of pay, before shuffling back into his home.

Harry lingered on the doorstep, dumbstruck and uncertain and already feeling secondhand grief for a couple too kind to deserve such an injustice. Eventually he moved on, there was a park nearby, empty due to the early hours and biting temperatures, where he sat himself on a bench as far from the street as he could manage.

It was easy to lose himself in his own mind in moments like that, there was plenty to lose himself in these days. But one thought in particular remained at the forefront, morbid but unshakeable, of the youngest Aronoff's last moments.

He knew very little of the man, he'd never actually met him as he'd been deployed before Harry had taken up with the Aronoffs, but his parents spoke of him and his brothers extensively and with a devoted pride and overwhelming love that made the revelation of his death so bitter even to the stranger that Harry was.

Harry hoped that, at least, the man had died quickly, his own death had been quick, painless, but had Jerome suffered? Did he realize he'd been shot? Or had he not understood what the intense pressure just below his sternum was? Why he was suddenly choking so violently on this dirty air?

 _He didn't._

Was he confused as to why his legs no longer supported him as he ran toward enemy fire? Why the ground beneath him was inexplicably slick and warm?

 _He was._

What was he thinking as spots began to crowd the border of his vision? Of his mother? His father? His two brothers lost somewhere in this hell?

 _It was of the sand he was staining red and how he wished he could stand at the edge of his home state with the salt on his tongue and the ocean stretched wide at his feet one last time._

Harry flinched, recoiled hard enough that the bench, weakened by age creaked in warning beneath him.

He was still in the park, he was still in New York, but for a moment he'd been there too, dying from a bullet to the gut on a beach somewhere in Europe. And his skin was still quivering with the energy that he knew must belong to Death.

The need to speak to the being was immense, but he didn't have the ingredients, the flowers and the branches to summon him. They might be found in an apothecary but he had no means of purchasing any of it, the meager amount of muggle money on him would do no good for him there, not to mention he had no idea where he might go to find an apothecary.

But he _needed_ to talk to Death. The last thing he could afford was another Hallow induced breakdown while stranded in this time. His desperation must have transcended planes of reality as, between one blink and the next, Death was there.

"What," he said unhappily, "do you want?"

Harry silently congratulated himself on managing to quell his second instinctual flinch of the day. "What…how did you know I wanted to see you?"

"You were screaming."

"I wasn't…."

"The power behind the thoughts and emotions you were hurling my way was akin to screaming. It was very difficult to ignore. What do you want?"

Wasn't that a handy piece of knowledge? Perhaps he should have listened to Death's mocking reprimands for using 'sticks and flowers' to summon him months ago. He might have saved himself a fair bit of stress.

"I'm sorry," he said, trying and only somewhat succeeding at seeming contrite. "I didn't mean to…yell, but it's happening again. I think I'm losing control."

"Of?"

"These abilities. It's not voices again, more like a vision or an out of body experience, maybe. I was dying. I was someone else who was dying."

"You're not losing control, quark." Death twisted his mouth in a mocking smile and gestured somewhere over his shoulder. "You're being stalked."

One hand fell to the wand at his hip while the rest of Harry's body whipped violently in his seat, craning desperately to see who Death was speaking of. But there was no one. "Where? I can't see them."

"Of course you can't, you're weak and your refusal to embrace who you've become is making you weaker. You're being stalked not by one of the living, but by a spirit, a shade. You must have encountered him at some point in your day and he was drawn to what you are."

"Excuse me?"

"He died violently, his parting from this world was not an easy or peaceful one, and, in the process, he left a piece of himself behind. Who knows how long he's been trapped here, but it's likely when he felt the power you're attempting to suppress he latched onto you in hopes that you might find him some peace." Death held out a hand and for a moment Harry could see the ghostly outline of a man, a soldier reaching for the proffered limb. "He will be returned to his whole and passed on peacefully."

"That was Jerome." Harry spoke quietly, awe struck but confused. "He died continents away."

"But he lived here, no? Shades rarely linger where they passed, they prefer to lurk where they once held the strongest ties."

"Home. But he's been dead for weeks and I've been there nearly every day, why did he only just now begin following me?"

Death shrugged, not cluelessly but carelessly. "Something within you has changed, expanded."

Harry frowned but nodded. "I've been feeling strange, powerful. I watched a little girl die and I've felt it ever since."

"That is to be expected. Our very existence revolves around dying, our power is rooted in it, it is only natural that being in proximity to it invigorates us. The effects will not be so severe though once you have inherited the full scope of what we can do."

"So this….itching beneath my skin, it'll pass? Just like everything else did?"

He received a sharp nod in answer. "One day it will no longer come in bursts of uncontrolled power, it will simply be who you are."

To most that might have come as a comfort, the promise of one day no longer having to wrestle with abilities beyond his control. But the truth of it was actually more daunting than anything to Harry.

"What's it like?"

Death didn't have an answer, all he could do was raise a brow in question.

"Being Death. The power you say you have, that I'll have one day, it seems…vast, limitless almost. You can travel time, cross space as if it's nothing. Are there no drawbacks to being what you are?"

For perhaps the first time since meeting him, Harry was able to witness Death's usual façade of condescending arrogance replaced by something that could almost be consideration.

"There are many drawbacks, too many to name, but even then the perks of the job far outweigh any imperfection. I would much rather be what we are now, than what you once were."

"You've always been this way? You were born death?"

Death shook his head. "I was not born. I've existed always."

"Then how do you know that what you are is better than what I had? Because I want it back, I don't want an endless future stretched before me. The thought of eternity…it's terrifying.

Gone was the consideration, replaced now by pity.

"It seems so, yes," Death agreed. "Because, despite what you will grow to one day be, you are still shackled by the mindset of a mortal, it will take much to break you free of it. But when you are, the thought will not seem so terrifying anymore."

Harry shook his head, unable, _unwilling_ to believe _._ "I can hardly imagine a time where that would be true."

Especially because accepting what he was, throwing off the fear of both death and eternity every human seemed to cling to, would mean he'd failed to find a way back in order to stop the union of the Hallows and that would mean the wizarding world had met their end.

And that simply wasn't an option.

* * *

Death left and Harry remained only long enough to regain his bearings. The past few days had been heavy with death and grief, all he wanted now was easy company, someone with whom he could unwind and relax. So he went back to Ives.

It was early morning still, not yet even noon, and he was still home, there to answer the door after only a handful of knocks.

"Harry?" Unpainted brows rose, surprised but not unhappy.

"I'm sorry, I know it's early but my employers closed the store for the day and I thought I might come and see you."

"Well, I won't say it's not unexpected, but it's not unwelcome either." Ives stepped away from where he was blocking the door. "Come in." A firm hand tugged him past the threshold before shutting the door behind them. "Have you eaten?"

Harry nodded, the last slice of a loaf of soda bread Mrs. Aronoff had gifted him a few days earlier had acted as his breakfast.

"Well, you can stand to eat a bit more. I was fixing to cook anyway." Once sure he was seated and comfortable, Ives set to work in the kitchen, grabbing a pot from one of the cupboards before filling it with water and placing it on the stovetop.

"Thank you." Long gone were the days where Harry'd pass up any sort of kindness, he'd take every bit he could get his hands on. "You look good, by the way." His fingers tapped his cheek. "No bruises."

Ives laughed. "Can't credit no kind of quick healing on my part. I've got bruises and they're nasty, but powder's good for covering it up."

"I can't see it." Harry squinted, trying to find some indication that Ives' flawless complexion was the product of makeup. "But then again, I don't know much about it and what to look for."

"With some dames it won't take much looking, if they're no good at putting on face you'll see it. But if you can match your colors and blend it all right, that ain't an issue."

"You do it well."

A slick smile spread across Ives' face and he laughed. "Thanks, doll. I wasn't always so good at it though. It took some time before I got the sultry look I was going for instead of the whole Bozo get up."

"You've been doing this for a while then? Why?"

"Why?" Ives repeated, confused.

"Why'd you start? Why'd you keep doing it?"

And there was that smile again, back in full force. "What's got you so curious? Thinking about joining our ranks? Need someone to show you the ropes?"

That startled a laugh from Harry. He couldn't ever imagine he'd be able to pull of taking on the persona of a woman, he was sure he was very poorly suited for that sort of act. "No, I just like understanding people."

"Shame. I started because of a feeling and I kept at it because I liked it, I liked that it felt right. That I wasn't trying to hide or pretend anymore. I'm different, strange, I know it's true, I'm a man but sometimes I enjoy putting on dresses and painting my lids blue and my lips red and feeling beautiful."

"I like that." Harry nodded resolutely. "I like different."

"What kind of different?"

"Any kind. No different is the same. That'd sort of defeat its purpose."

"Are you? Different? My kind. Tell it to me straight."

"I don't think so. But then I've never tried it, never thought I wanted to."

"Thinking 'bout it doesn't give you the jitters though?"

Harry shook his head. "Where I'm from, a man laying with a man, or a woman with woman, or even either dressing as the other, there's prejudice, disdain, but it's not criminal, it's not taboo. It's done and people accept it."

"Where you're from sounds like somewhere I'd like to be."

"No, that's one of the only good things about that place. There's plenty of bad there, maybe just as much as here."

Ives' didn't look entirely convinced, but he was good enough not to press the issue. "Is that why you left?"

Harry shrugged this time, loosely and trying his best not to consider the question too closely. He'd come for easy company and conversation after all. "It's something I'd hoped to change, but not exactly why I left. I intend to go back, soon. But what about what you do? It's obviously not widely accepted here but you don't seem to make much effort in hiding it. Does dressing as a woman at night affect your life during the day?"

"Not as much as you might think." Ives graciously accepted the new topic with no comment. "Most of the boys I hang out with are fairies same as me, or tolerant of them at the least. And the people I work for don't care what I am as long as I keep doing good work for them and don't bring it into their business. Worst I got to look out for are the drunk assholes I run into at night looking to bring our beef to the daylight."

"Does that happen often?"

"Not much, no. I'm good at acting normal, so the fellas who recognize me aren't always sure and they don't want to look cockeyed slinging facts they ain't sure about."

Harry murmured in thanks when he was handed a bowl of lightly sweetened oats and milk. "I don't mean to take up your time asking all of these personal questions. If you need to prepare for work you can kick me out, my feelings won't be hurt."

"Don't worry about it. You're good company, kid."

How long had it been since he'd heard something like that? That someone wanted to be with him just because. Too long, for sure.

"You don't mind the questions?"

Ives smiled and shook his head. "It's different, talking about this during the day with someone who isn't like me and doesn't look at me like I'm less because of it."

"Good. One more question then."

"Just one?"

"Just one. Was it hard, accepting that you were different?"

"Yes. Near impossible. But when I did it, when I stopped being afraid, my world changed. Questions I didn't know I was asking finally made sense, a weight I didn't even know I was carrying dissolved, and the miserable days I thought were normal weren't anymore. It was terrifying, I spent so much time disgusted with myself, it took me a long time to grow past it. But I think if I hadn't, I wouldn't be here, because that, more than the beatings I catch for being seen with red lips and a cock in my mouth, was killing me. Slow but sure."

When Harry left the apartment some several hours later, Ives' unflinching acceptance of himself and all of his dangerous differences stuck with him more than the rest of the conversation that followed. Because while they were two wildly different sort of differents, what he'd said was still unnervingly applicable to Harry's own situation.

He didn't like what he was becoming, this creature that could one day be likened to Death, he wanted to ignore it, push it to the side until the day in which he could be rid of it for good. But until then, suppressing what was not so easily suppressed would more than likely wind up doing far more harm than good. If he could make like the way of Ives and make some sort of effort to acknowledge this terrifying part of him, at least until he could see it gone, maybe he'd spend less time petrified of all that it could do and more time using it to his own advantage. Because there was no way home, at least no way that could be found in this time and this library. He'd looked everywhere, he was doing the best research he could but it was becoming increasingly obvious that wizards had no way to move forward sixty years in the future.

But he wasn't _just_ a wizard anymore, and the sort of being that he was _could_ move through the stream of time. Death had said it himself on that first day in this time, he needed only power he did not yet have access to to see it done. But he knew a way in which he could, potentially, take the little power the Hallows had granted him thus far, and make them great. Great enough to see him home.

* * *

Erskine was late showing up, not late enough to cause worry but just enough where Harry, who was already one edge with a strange mix of trepidation and excitement, began to grow just a bit restless. He forced himself to hold off, however, when the doctor finally did arrive, allowing time for warm greetings and the exchange of an apple for a sandwich before bringing up the topic that chased all other thought from his mind.

"I wanted to ask you about what we spoke of yesterday in the car. If you don't mind."

Erskine nodded, unperturbed and unsuspicious as he unwrapped his sandwich. "Of course, what is it?"

"The serum," Harry made it a point to keep his voice low in order to prevent the few around them from eavesdropping, "how does it work exactly?"

Erskine remained unbothered despite the sensitive topic of the conversation. "Have you changed your mind then?"

"Not exactly….But maybe. I'm not sure."

"All right, well the serum is very simple in concept. It was created with the purpose of enhancing everything about a man to the peak of human standards, past the peak, actually. It amplifies all, both in mind and body."

"And you want to use it to make soldiers? To fight the war?"

"Just a few of these men could change the tide in our favor. I'm not looking for an entire army of these enhanced men, only a team, a small one of highly trained soldiers able to do what full battalions can't and end this war before more lives are needlessly lost."

"How many men have received it so far?"

"Only one."

"And it succeeded?"

Erskine shifted on the step he was seated on. "It succeeded in what it was created to do. But the timing was wrong and the subject was wrong."

"What about it was wrong? What happened?"

"It is as I said before, the serum is meant to amplify all, the bad and the good. It is unfortunate that our first subject had far too much bad within him. He was an angry, spiteful man, full of greed before the serum, after he was worse, monstrous. Physically, he was near perfect, but his mind was chaos, the serum didn't know when to stop and his emotion grew to be too much. Even in a man full of good this would lead only to insanity, too much of even a good thing can end very poorly."

"But you've fixed it? It's stable now?"

Erskine shook his head. "Not at the moment. We've been working to find that bit of balance we need to make it perfect, but it's….elusive."

"Can I help?"

"Help?"

Harry wasn't a scientist or a genius, he wasn't even a graduate of his class, but he didn't need to be, Erskine was all three, at least he presumed he was, and there was sure to be a potion, a ritual, a spell or _something_ that could work to find this man what he needed, all he needed was to be pointed in the right direction.

"I said I couldn't do it because I don't want to be a soldier, I don't want to fight again and I still don't. But I think I can help and I hope in return you might help me."

Erskine didn't seem mocking or disdainful as one might when a scruffy looking barely adult offered to do what some obviously very bright minds couldn't. He was open and curious, willing to listen as long as Harry had something to say. "What did you have in mind?"

Harry couldn't speak for a moment, because this moment here was when he finally had to prove that he really meant it when he'd thought and said that he wanted to trust Erskine, because if he couldn't, he was putting everything important to him at risk. But this might be his only way home, he had to be willing to pay that price.

"I want to show you something." One hand fisted nervously in the hem of his shirt, but he still stood on steady legs and nodded to where he recognized Erskine's car to be waiting. "But we need somewhere less busy."

Unlike Harry, there was no hesitation when Erskine stood. He led the way to his car and allowed Harry to instruct the driver on where to go without an ounce of distrust.

The sleek car looked out of place in the rundown area in which Harry's alley resided, but no one stopped long enough to cause them trouble, likely frightened off by the intimidating stance of the driver who stepped out long enough to check Harry's alley.

"It's clear. Do you want me to…?"

Erskine shook his head as he climbed from the car. "There's no need to accompany us, we trust Harry. He worries insufferably." The doctor confided as he and Harry made their way to the back of the alley. "But he is a good man. A good friend. Perhaps I should go back, reassure him one last time, I wouldn't want him to make himself sick worrying."

Harry smiled and gently took Erskine's arm, preventing him from stopping and guiding him forward. "He'll be fine. That's only the wards talking."

"The what? But really, I should go and get him, I don't like the thought of him waiting in the car alone-oh…."

The doctor's worry turned to confusion the moment they stepped past the barrier of the wards, his heavy brow drew down on his eyes as he took in the addition to the alley that hadn't been there only seconds ago. "What is this? What is that?"

"Wards, to keep people stumbling upon here."

"Here?" Harry didn't flinch from the embarrassment he felt coursing hot through him when dark eyes made darker with an emotion he refused to read turned on him. "Do you live here?"

Harry nodded sharply. "I did not bring you here for pity. I brought you for privacy."

"To show me something, you said."

"Yes. But before I say anything more, I need you to make a promise." Taking the subtle tilt of the older man's head as curious interest, Harry continued on. "You can't tell anyone what I'm about to show you. I need you to swear that, so long as I'm not intentionally doing anyone harm, you will not tell a soul what you're about to see unless given express permission from me alone."

"So long as it puts no one in harm's way," Erskine agreed.

It wasn't a binding contract, Erskine could go back on his word if he wished to, but Harry had decided to trust the man and this was the first step in doing so.

"As a man of science, you might find it difficult to believe that there are forces in this world that can defy the basic laws of gravity, physics, time. There exist people able to manipulate the world and its energies with words," cautiously he drew his wand, "and a stick."

He started small, a flick of his wand summoned one of his threadbare blankets to his arms, he quickly wrapped it around himself, more for show rather than for comfort as his warming charms were still holding strong. Then he tried for something a little more difficult, conjuring two chairs from nothing. He'd only tried the spell once or twice months ago, and his chairs always wound up a bit lumpy and the fabric a bit of an eyesore, but they were comfortable and wouldn't disappear the moment they were sat in.

"What is this?" Erskine's eyes grew wide with shock as Harry continued to cast several low level charms. One to change his hair color, another to change a two day old newspaper to a raven whose wings still sported war propaganda, and one more to turn it back. All were small, innocuous charms, nothing powerful enough to tip of the MACUSA and bring them down on his head, but just enough to get his point across.

"It's magic."

For whatever reason, that didn't seem to be answer enough for Erskine, if anything, he looked even more baffled. "Magic."

"Yes. I'm a wizard." It was a little bit awful, but Harry found himself actually enjoying himself if only a little. No wonder Dumbledore spoke in riddles so often. "This is my wand."

"And the help you wish to provide…."

"Would be magical, yes."

"How?"

Harry gestured to the armchair he'd conjured, once Erskine had gingerly sat himself in one and he was comfortable in the other he explained. "We have libraries worth of spells, potions, something that could find you the balance you need."

"And in return you want what?"

"The serum. I don't want to fight or be one of your soldiers, I need it in order to get back to my family."

"The one you lost."

"I can get back to them, I'm just not powerful enough yet. Your serum can help."

"It was never intended for something like this."

"But you think it could work?"

There was only a moment in which he hesitated, mulling over the new possibilities, before he nodded. "Yes. I do. Do you really think you can help?"

There was no hesitation on Harry's part. He'd thought this over long enough. "Yes. I do."

"There are men I'd need to speak with, men you'd have to meet. But I'm willing and they will be too."

"How many?"

"We'll keep it small," Erskine assured. "Two men, one woman. Experts in their respective fields."

"I'll need oaths for them as well. I don't know them or trust them like I do you, so they'll have to be a bit more binding."

"How long will that take?"

Harry shrugged. "Not long once I find the right ones."

"Tomorrow then? Morning?" Once he received a nod from Harry, Erskine rose from his seat so that he could move close enough to clap him on the shoulder. "Tomorrow then. I'll head back now, speak with a few people about getting you the proper clearance to enter."

"Sounds a bit intimidating."

Erskine laughed, deep and warm and no different from any other time despite how much had just transpired between the two of them. "Only a little. I will see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, Doctor Erskine."

* * *

The Strategic Scientific Reserve was the name of the organization in which Erskine was employed and they were located in the back of an antique store guarded by an elderly woman who Harry was certain was there to be underestimated.

The three members of the organizations Harry was to be introduced, the two men and single women, were waiting for them several stories below the antique store front and passed a cavernous room that Erskine informed him would be where the procedure would take place when it was finally ready.

Peggy Carter was the woman, beautiful and untouchable beside the two other men, the older Colonel Phillips and the young and eccentric looking Howard Stark. Each of the three surveyed Harry curiously, then slightly disbelievingly.

"This is the one you said could help with your serum?" Phillips was the one to speak, voice holding that hint of scorn Harry had been expecting to hear from Erskine the previous day. "He's a kid."

"Yes." Erskine's grin was enormous and proud. "He is young and so he is full of much I had not once even stopped to consider. Harry, would you show them what you showed me?"

"I have to secure vows first."

The library had held several different books on contracts and vows Harry was able to pull inspiration from. He'd had a lot to choose from, too much really, but he eventually decided to go with a simple one, one best suited for muggles. It was prewritten and all that it needed to be binding was a signature in the signer's blood.

Phillips, Carter, and Stark accepted the short scrolls of parchment the vows had been written on, the incredulity their features had expressed upon Harry's entrance only grew as they read.

"You didn't mention we were expected to sign anything, Doctor." Carter's words coming accented with a brogue not much different from Harry's own was a discovery he found surprisingly welcome. The sound of home did wonders to settle the jitters that shook him imperceptibly.

"If this doesn't go as we'd hoped, I'd like to keep my privacy." Harry informed her and the two others. "In order for it to be binding, it needs to be signed in blood."

A startled laugh burst from Stark. "Are you…he's serious?"

"He is looking out for his safety just as much as you would yours. I made the same promise and found it to be for good reason. Although, I will admit that the blood was not a part of my own oath."

Harry shrugged unrepentantly. "I know you. I don't know them."

"Yes, but why blood?" Stark raised his parchment questioningly. "I can understand why you'd want a written agreement, but signing in our own blood seems a bit excessive."

"It would seem so, yes. But it's necessary."

Stark remained unconvinced, and from a quick glance at Carter and Phillips, they did as well. Harry did his best to suppress a frustrated huff. He knew walking in that there would be resistance, signing in blood wasn't exactly a common practice, even in the wizarding world. But he'd hoped the combined efforts of him and the doctor, coupled with a fair bit of curiosity would get the job done.

"Fine. _Wingardium leviosa."_

A chorus of shrieks filled the room as three chairs scraped across the floor in an attempt to push their occupants away from a suddenly airborne table.

"What…"

"Sign the contract and I'll tell you more. Please." Suddenly recalling something, Harry reached into his pocket and retrieved three crumpled but still fully functional quills. "Do you need a quill."

Beside him, Erskine nodded encouragingly. "Sign it."

No one moved for an awful moment and Harry began wondering if he'd have to shoddily attempt to obliviate the three. But then Carter reached into a coat pocket and drew back with a knife she then used to cut the palm of her hand. Her attempt at signing her name with the quill was a bit clumsy, but it got the job done just fine.

"Would you like me to help with that?"

Harry held out a hand questioningly, after a moment, the woman realized what he was offering and cautiously reached across the table to lay her hand palm up in his.

" _Episkey."_

The sluggishly bleeding wound sealed quickly, leaving nothing but a smear of blood across her palm.

Galvanized by her action, Stark and Phillips drew their own knives and carefully signed the bottom of their respective parchments, though only Stark accepted his offer to heal him.

Explaining the basics of his magic after that wasn't easy, but it was made quicker by his previous demonstration and Erskine's backing of all of his claims. And though it took a few more charms before they were fully convinced, it wasn't long before the crux of his presence was returned to.

"You think with your…abilities," Stark reiterated, "you might be able to help us perfect the serum?"

Harry was quick to cast out a disclaimer, these people looked as if one wrong or less than truthful word would be all it'd take to throw him out on his hear. "I can't say with absolute certainty that I have the answers to your problem. But between your science and my magic, I really am confident we can get it done."

"And you said in return we would help you how?"

"After the serum has been successfully completed and you've found your soldiers, I need the serum for myself."

Why?"

"So that I can go home. What I'm able to do now isn't enough, it'll take years for my abilities to grow to be enough to get me there. I don't have years. But the serum could amplify them, it could make them enough."

"I trust him." Erskine spoke calmly but with an immutable authority. "You should as well. He is deserving of our help."

Carter and Stark nodded, but it had become quickly apparent in the time he'd been in the room that they didn't call the shots. Phillips had remained mostly silent, choosing to observe rather than engage, and throughout it all his face had remained carefully impassive.

His response took several minutes, it was clear he was in no rush to make any kind of hasty decisions. When he spoke, it was a question directed at Erskine. "How are you sure that he won't end up another Schmidt, or one who's worse?"

"Because I've seen him show compassion for those any other would overlook, grieve for strangers, and indulge an old man just looking for company. He is not Schmidt. He is a good man."

"Hm." There was another pause and this time Harry was sure he was doing it just to be dramatic. "All right then. If you can get it to work, you won't hear me complain."

And finally, Harry could breathe. A yes wasn't yet his ticket home, but it was one step closer to it.

* * *

Hours were spent drawing up an arrangement between Harry and the Strategic Scientific Reserve, immortalizing their agreement in ink and paper so that neither side could back out when it best suited them. When they were done night had long since fallen and Erskine insisted on driving him home.

The worst of winter was beginning to wane, but the doctor still frowned when they pulled up at Harry's alley, clearly uncomfortable with allowing him out into the cold

"You do not have to stay here," he finally decided to offer, "I have a home with plenty of room."

Harry smiled, grateful but clearly with no intention of accepting. "Thank you, but I actually like it here. I've worked hard to make it what it is."

"Well, the offer will remain open if you change your mind. But I imagine you won't really need it in another few months. You will compensated generously for your help with the Reserve."

"I thought that had already been settled upon?" Harry said with a frown of confusion.

"The serum is a reward for a job well done. The time and work you put in leading up to it will still be deserving of compensation." Erskine looked immensely pleased with himself. "You are now a member of our organization and so will be treated as such."

The thought of finally having enough to afford a home with an actual ceiling and walls to retain warmth more authentic than that of a cheap warming charm stirred up an almost embarrassing amount of emotion in him. "Thank you."

A warm hand, rough with age and hard work, closed around Harry's for just a brief second. "Why do you thank me? This was all your idea" Same as every parting, Erskine closed their conversation out with the same question. "I will see you tomorrow?"

And just like always, Harry confirmed. "I will see you tomorrow."

He slept that night with no worry, no pressing anxiety or cloying homesickness. Only a hope that grew less tentative by the moment.

* * *

 **A/N: That Infinity Wars trailer though.**

 **Come say hi on Facebook and Tumblr! You can find me on both under AnarchicMuse.**


	8. Chapter 8

The magical branch of the New York Public Library prevented visits from muggles, whether accidental or intentional, and the protections were much too old and much too powerful for a fully trained curse breaker to take a crack at, let alone poor, undertrained Harry. So the onerous task of muddling through the mazelike organization system, tracking down every text they might need, and copying all pertinent information (by hand he might add, due to extensive anti-theft charms) fell to the beleaguered boy-who-lived. But he bore the work with good cheer, it was painstaking and tedious, but, at the end of the day, procuring the books and information for the real scientists like Erskine and Stark was where he was most helpful. That and lending his magic for study.

He'd been a bit wary about casting more than the most basic charms in the presence of his muggle companions, but he quickly found that the laws regarding casting magic in front of muggles were either much more lax so far in the past or he hadn't understood them very well to begin with. Harry had so far worked up the courage to perform fifth year offensive spells for Stark and Erskine and still had not received an owl or any other form of warning from the MACUSA. Of course they could simply be using every spell used in front of the muggles to build an indefensible case against him, but that was an issue he would deal with when- _if_ \- it ever came to pass.

In the meantime, Harry would continue to plagiarize texts meant only for those of his kind and perform tricks not allowed for muggle eyes; he would carry on breaking the law and do so happily as long as the SSR continued to make progress in their work. And progress they were indeed making, even if it was slow, so slow he was sometimes convinced they truly didn't know what they were doing and hadn't yet told him because they liked his magic tricks. But all it took was a moment listening to Erskine and Starks confusing but knowledgeable science babble, or spot the excited gleam in Carter and Phillip's eyes after every experiment that failed just the slightest bit less for him to be sure that progress of some sort was being made, even if he didn't fully understand it.

Until one day, after nearly a month spent copying every theoretical potions book and every herbologist's text in the library's extensive repertoire, Erskine found his answer.

"Pale anise may be just what I'm missing."

Harry looked over the older man's shoulder, down onto the sheet of copied parchment Erskine had marked and notated extensively. He recognized the sheet only because he'd had to rewrite it three quarters of the way through after spilling an entire pot of ink over it.

"Anise?" Stark peered at the two over a pair of protective goggles, he'd been tinkering with some machine or the other in preparation of the eventual perfection of the serum. "Isn't that some kind of flower?"

"Yes. Anise is." Erskine nodded. "As is _pale_ anise, although the latter is a magical sibling to the first."

"What properties does it have?" Harry wondered aloud.

"It's good for temperance, balancing out the extreme. It's used in a variety of potions, but its most notable inclusion is in the Draught of Peace."

Stark scoffed, quickly losing interest. "That sounds like about a thousand and one of these plants you've found."

Erskine only smiled patiently. "The thing that prevents it from joining those plants as the thousand and second failure is that it's used in a wide variety of potions because of its compatible properties. It can be mixed with near every chemical ingredient and not alter the fundamental chemistry of the potion."

"So it could potentially be added to the serum and lend its balancing properties without screwing up the enhancing benefits of the serum?" Harry guessed.

"Exactly." Erskine beamed. "We'll make a scientist out of you yet."

"Should I put in an order with the apothecary for some of the anise?"

"Yes," Erskine nodded. "And perhaps a few more orders of the gilliflower? It nearly worked the last time we tried it, I'm curious to see how it would react with the addition of the anise."

A few weeks earlier, Harry had, in a stroke of luck, found himself in contact with the owner of an apothecary who also so happened to be a muggleborn. Around that time Erskine had concluded that it was in potions and specifically the magical ingredients that went into them that the answer to his problem lie. So Harry had begun the process of attempting to find an apothecarist who would take muggle money just as readily as wizarding. His contact was more than happy to take his money despite not being in the right currency, he was familiar enough with dollars and coins thanks to his muggle upbringing and it was an easy enough matter to convert the dollars to galleons if one was a legally registered wizard of the United States. And what was best, the man never asked questions regarding why Harry could never pay with wizarding currency or why he ordered all manners of strange ingredients in such large quantities.

The shipment of anise took the better part of two weeks to show up, Harry's apothecarist had to procure it all the way from the Mediterranean. Its arrival was met with much eager anticipation, something about Erskine's infallible optimism kept the ranks of smaller league SSR scientists just as hopeful, but he'd seemed especially positive that this latest breakthrough would work and it had rubbed off on just about everyone.

Harry sat with him for the thirty-nine consecutive hours it took to mix, extract, compress, mash, and brew each ingredient, too full of nervous anticipation to even consider doing anything else. He envied the man his steady hands and quiet patience. In times like these he was most aware of how much easier life would be with both.

"I've been trying to perfect this serum for many years," was Erskine's response when Harry voiced his frustrations aloud. "Somewhere in that time I learned the patience I needed to see this through to its proper end."

"What makes you so sure this is it?" Harry queried.

Erskine shrugged. "Something about this feels different. I've repeated this process more times than I could count, this is the first I've felt so absolutely certain that I have found my answer."

Harry hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat as he curled a little tighter into his seat, he'd made himself comfortable a few meters away from the scientist; far enough to not be in the way, but still close enough to carry on a conversation. "What will you do when it's done? After you've tested it and confirmed what you already know?"

"Then comes the real tests. The harder ones."

"Human trials?"

Erskine dipped his head in agreement, too engrossed in his work to look away. "We've never made it this far for good reason," he said. "If, somehow, this fails the results would be catastrophic. It would not end well for our subject."

Harry was silent for a long moment, considering. "They would die?"

"Perhaps. Or worse they would live, disfigured, crippled, an awful shell of the person they once were." For just a second, Erskine looked away from the serum he was steadily producing to pin Harry with a stern stare. "I know what you're thinking and the answer is no, you will not be my first human subject."

"Why?"

"I see and I understand that for whatever reason you do not fear death, but there are things far worse and I will not subject you to them. The men who will undergo the coming trials are fully informed on what they are agreeing to. They know the risks and they are willing to go forth anyway."

"So am I."

"I know you are." Erskine smiled, just a bit twisted and not at all happy. "But you don't have to. Save yourself for the family you've worked so hard to return to."

And there was nothing Harry could say in argument, so he sat back and observed as the man before him doggedly worked until he was left with a row of vials all carrying a liquid of unnaturally blue color.

"What do you think?" This time, Erskine's smile was bright, full of years upon years of hard work finally paid off. "Will this finally give us that super soldier we've been hoping for?"

* * *

There were samples the serum could be tested on, isolated samples of human DNA, flesh and tissue. And then there were animals, a set of three primates who were peacefully put to rest after the testing had been completed. Every test came back with one conclusive result, the serum worked and the side effects that had plagued it were no more.

"I didn't believe it." Howard beamed as he swooped forward to clasp Erskine's hands in celebration. "When you brought this kid on with his stick and his spells I wasn't sure he'd be able to deliver. But, by god, he's done it."

Harry shrugged. "All I did was copy a few books for you, everyone else did the real work."

"You lent your time, energy, and magic," Peggy spoke up before Erskine could refute his attempt at modesty. "Don't be so eager to sell yourself short."

"We'll have to celebrate!" Howard continued as he bounced around the room, overcome with awe and furious excitement. "Dinner and dancing and drinks."

"The work is not yet done, my friend," Erskine laughed. "The serum is complete, yes, but now it's time to begin our search for our candidate, one who is both willing and worthy of being our first soldier."

"The colonel has already begun compiling a dossier of candidates he believes to be best qualified for the job," Peggy said. "None have reached the front lines yet so it'd be a simple matter to pull them aside for evaluation."

Erskine hummed noncommittally. "Harry and I will look them over, see who our colonel deems as worthy."

"We will?" This was coming as quite the surprise to Harry, his contract for the SSR extended only until the successful completion of the serum, from what he'd seen today they'd done that.

"Of course." Erskine spoke as if it were obvious. "We cannot be fully certain of the serum's success until our super soldier stands before us. I won't have you leaving a moment before that. Besides, you've proven to be a rather good judge of character, I'll need your help when it comes to choosing a proper candidate."

"If you won't allow the dancing you'll at least allow me to take you to dinner and drinks," Howard interjected. "We can look over your candidates then."

"A bit of drink might make the process easier," Erskine conceded. "So long as you can assure our privacy, it wouldn't do for someone to overhear."

"I have just the place." Howard held his arm out to an amused Peggy. "I'll bring the car around?"

"And we'll pay Mr. Phillips a quick visit for those files."

Phillips wasn't in when Harry and Erskine made their way to his end of the facility, but his assistant, a bright woman with a wide smile, had all they needed already prepared for them.

The file was surprisingly thick, a quick glance numbered the candidate profiles within at nearly one hundred. And after scanning the first few evaluation sheets they quickly found majority of these candidates had something in common.

"They're all already very fit," Peggy observed after they'd arrived at the quietly expensive restaurant Howard had chosen for them and received their first round of drinks. "Impressive scores, very good physically, and obedient."

"Yes." Harry smiled at the way that single syllable word so eloquently expressed Erskine's apathy for the candidates. "Good, American soldiers, all of them, but these papers tell me nothing I want to know." Erskine plucked up the file of one of the many soldiers and surveyed it with a displeased frown. "He is strong but is he kind? He can follow orders but does he have the ability to think for himself?"

"We'd have to meet them," Harry agreed. "Face to face. It won't work otherwise."

"Exactly," Erskine nodded. "To know if he deserves this opportunity I must look each man in his eye, speak directly to him, then I will know."

"Meeting each of these men would take time we don't exactly have, Doctor," Peggy said, though she hadn't yet outright turned down Erskine's request. "But perhaps we could arrange a second round of training and evaluation under the SSR's supervision? You would be given the chance to see for yourself each of these candidates in person and how they measure up as both men and soldiers. A week would be more than enough time, yes?"

Erskine hummed and tapped his chin in thought. "I would like to submit a few candidates of my own."

One of Peggy's brows arched in surprise. "You already have men in mind?"

"No, but how difficult could it be to find a few? Men have been signing up to join this fight since the first bomb dropped on their harbor."

"It shouldn't be any trouble at all to allow you evaluation privileges in some of our more local recruitment stations," Peggy conceded with a fond shake of her head. "Any more requests?"

"Harry comes with me."

She waved her hand as if any other alternative weren't even one to be considered. "Of course."

Erskine leaned back in his seat, a satisfied smile on his face. "Then that will be all. Now," he clapped his hands once before reaching for the drink that had, until that moment, gone untouched, "we drink and we dine, we have much to celebrate!"

* * *

The first man they meet had promise, reasonably fit with a kind smile and a desire only to see the world safe for the wife he has not yet built up the courage to ask to marry him. He was intelligent, having grown up in a family well off enough to allow him to continue school to the end rather than drop out to take on a factory job. But he was a bit timid at times, not as quick to speak his mind as they would have liked.

"He would make a good soldier, but not much of a leader," Erskine noted after he had gone.

"That's not a deal breaker though, is it?" Harry asked. "We wouldn't want this team of enhanced men running around full of alpha males. We want men who can lead and those who can take orders."

"Yes. Excellent point. Shall I put him on the list?"

Harry nodded.

It took at least a dozen more men and several days of the week long time limit they'd been allotted before they found another that sparked their interest. Young and a bit naïve, but whose heart was in the right place.

"I'm not sure he's suited for the fight," was Harry's observation. "He's innocent. Put him down anyway."

There were a few more; a man whose father had been lost in the previous great war and another with no family and nothing to lose but the country he loved. But none left either Harry or Erskine feeling overwhelmingly impressed, they were pleased with their selections, yes, but not yet thrilled.

Then came the asthmatic.

They were scheduled to head out to the camp to meet the rest of the candidates the next afternoon, but Erskine insisted on one more evening spent in the recruitment tents. This one was set up just outside an expo hosted by Howard and received a constant influx of men hopped up on beer and the allure of their sweet dates' smiles. Every man they met with was recruited into the US' military but passed up for the SSR's own team.

"I suppose we'll have to be satisfied with what we have," Harry said after another disappointing session. "The men we chose are fine contenders for the serum."

"One more," Erskine insisted looking down at a noticeably thick file. "This one I recognize from our last station, he was turned away. And from the looks of it, many times more before that."

Harry peaked at the file and saw it full of different attempts at enlistment requests, each from a different city but all bearing the same name. Steve Rogers. "I can see why they would turn him away," he said, taking in the numerous medical conditions ailing the man, "but the repeated attempts at joining says much about him."

"Shall we see what he has to say for himself?"

Harry nodded and followed the doctor into the blocked off examination room where a man of frail stature looked as if he'd been in the process of shoving his shoes on to flee. Erskine followed the general script they used when speaking with potential candidates, while Harry perched on the edge of the examination table, content to observe. It was evident from the first statement that left Erskine's mouth, a challenge poorly disguised behind a smile, that this encounter was different. The doctor watched this small man and listened to each response with a rapport he hadn't shown any of the others.

So when he turned his gaze to Harry, the same question he'd asked one way or another each session in his eyes, all the younger male could do was nod. Erskine had found his candidate.

A messy stamp was pressed onto a sheet of paper, as Steve Rogers watched on, stunned that someone had finally looked past his weak form to see the potential that lurked within.

"You do not feel the same way I do?" Erskine asked after he and Harry strode from the center, their task finally completed.

"The ailments are a non-issue, the serum should be able to correct every one, but…" Harry hesitated, trying to find the best way to word his thoughts, "…he seems the sort who feels as if they have something to prove."

"He does." Erskine agreed. "But he is the first I believe can actually prove it."

"You've not led me astray yet." Harry said fondly even if he was still unsure. "I look forward to seeing him in action."

"As do I. Tomorrow, Harry?"

"Tomorrow, Doctor."

* * *

There were fifty candidates to arrive at the Lehigh training camp, of which only eight had been personally selected by Erskine. Rogers stood out stark amongst them all. But not always in a way that reflected poorly on him. He was just as abysmal as they'd all predicted he would be when it came to just about anything physical, but it was his attitude, his demeanor that stood out from the rest.

"He's small, he's weak, and he's got a mouth on him." Was Phillips' opinion.

"He's interesting." Was what Peggy had to say. "Physically underwhelming, yes, but he's brave, dogged, and his moral code is…strong."

Which was at least better than Erskine's unhelpful, "He has potential."

Harry was still reserving his final judgment until the end of the training period, but not even he could deny Rogers' differences were refreshing in the seemingly never-ending sea of meat headed, overly muscled army jocks.

"In the end, it doesn't really matter what the rest of us think," Peggy said when Harry brought it up over their meager army ration lunch in her at least somewhat private tent. "Erskine adores him, he's the only one he will consider to receive the serum."

"He'll have to settle for at least a few more if he wants his army."

"But Rogers must be his first."

"He's such a strange man," Harry laughed. "Sometimes I believe he's just contrary for the fun of it."

An answering smile stretched Peggy's red painted lips. "Oh certainly. But compared to the others, Rogers does have something that could make him remarkable, even if the serum doesn't work-"

Harry rapped sharply on the wood of the table between them. " _It will._ "

Peggy rolled her eyes, but otherwise carried on as if he hadn't interrupted. "-Erskine won't let him go so easily. Just as he didn't for you."

"Yes, well hopefully Rogers has better sense than to take up with that mad scientist." Harry paused as he prodded at his lukewarm meal. "But it will work. The serum. It will."

"Yes," Peggy said, not an ounce of uncertainty in her voice, "it will. And then what?"

"It will win you all the war and see me home."

"You still have yet to tell us where home is."

Harry frowned, more from a sad pensiveness than anger at the prying question. "It's hard to explain."

"Are you from another world?"

That startled a laugh from him. "Nothing so exciting, no. But I do come from far, so far it's impossible for anyone, even my kind, to bridge that gap without an extraordinary amount of power." Harry forced himself to refrain from saying any more, Peggy was smart, any more than that and she would begin to piece together the truth.

"I hope it works, I'm confident that it will, even while I don't look forward to that moment." Peggy reached out and took gentle hold of Harry's hand. "I've become fond of you. I'll miss you."

"Agent Carter," Harry ducked his head to hide the red he could feel heating his cheeks, "one might mistake such sweet words for a declaration of love."

"No," Peggy laughed, "you remind me of all the things I miss of my sweet brother Michael. He was as progressive for his time as you are now, and you both have such kind hearts."

Harry stopped trying to hide the red that had by then fully engulfed his face. He looked up at Peggy who in turn reminded him of all the things he missed in Ron and Hermione; intelligent and brave, fierce but kind. "When the time comes, I will miss you."

"Of course you will," she said, something brighter took hold of her face as she attempted to forcefully expel the suddenly heavy atmosphere. "You've more than proved you're just as incapable of keeping yourself out of trouble as Stark, without me to fish you from your messes I fear what will become of you."

"A painless death, if I'm lucky."

"You're odd and a cynic."

"We're at war, most of the men here are, and even more of the women."

"Yes, well you have a stranger affinity to the macabre than most."

Harry barely suppressed a smile, perhaps that was his close connection with Death shining through?

" _Odd_ ,"Peggy repeated after one glance at the strange expression he failed to hide.

"I never said I wasn't," Harry agreed easily. "Do you have anything booked for this evening?"

"I'm meant to meet with Seargent Duffy and the Colonel at a quarter till to discuss the candidates progress. Care to join?"

"Ah, no thanks," Harry said with a grimace. "I don't have the patience or the attention span to sit through any sort of meeting. I'd much rather watch you bark at the recruits until they cry."

"I'm rather good at it, aren't I?"

"Uncannily." Harry rose from his seat and crossed the table to press a kiss to Peggy's cheek. "I'll leave you to prepare for your meeting, Erskine wanted me to come round his to hash out details of the procedure when I was free."

"Lunch was fun. Find me when you're free and we'll find some recruits to bark at."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry said with a smile and a salute before ducking from the tent.

He'd forgotten the logic behind his resolve to keep away from the people of this time. But now he remembered that he'd wanted to keep away from avoiding attachments in this time to both leave as little of an impression as possible and to make his eventual leaving as painless as he could. Of course he'd failed spectacularly on both parts, he'd befriended some seemingly pretty important players in the second world war and aided in the creation of a serum meant to grant men abilities far past that which was normal. And he knew when it was inevitably time to go it'd be difficult saying goodbye to Erskine and Peggy and even Stark, more than difficult.

And yet no regret nagged at him despite this realization. He'd potentially altered the timeline with his helping hand and certainly made leaving harder than it needed to be, but he was convinced that if he hadn't met Erskine and Peggy and Howard and Phillips, he'd still be wasting his days away in the library, not a single step closer to finding his way home.

Any issues his meddling might have caused could be smoothed over when he was back in his proper time, and while he would miss his new companions fiercely it would be nowhere near the hollow ache of being without those he'd endured so much with.

So there were no regrets for going completely back on his word, in order to accomplish his primary goal of getting home, he'd _needed_ to go back on his word.

The conclusion made it easier to enjoy the trek to Erskine's quarters, there was only so nice a muggy New Jersey day could be, but at least it wasn't clouded by one of the awful funks he'd found himself consistently falling into when he'd first been displaced. Perhaps it was his heightened mood that allowed him to not only notice the faint sounds of an uneven brawl occurring somewhere behind one of the nearby building but also find enough care within himself to track down the cause of the disruption and try his hand at putting an end to it.

It was Rogers and two other recruits behind the barracks, rolling around in the mud in what could be considered less of a brawl and more of a savage beating of the smaller of the three. In the time it took Harry to reach them, the man had been knocked flat on his back with a right hook that had even him seeing stars in sympathy followed by a kick to his mid-section that probably left him with more than a few bruised ribs. And yet still he managed to clamor to his feet and raise his fists in an almost admirable refusal to concede.

"What is this?" Harry barked, voice as sharp as a whip crack, before the men could get another hit in.

Immediately the two men, one of whom Harry recognized as Gilmore Hodge, leapt away, guilt painted across their faces until they realized it was Harry rather than one of their more intimidating CO's. They were both still smart enough not to ignore him completely, while he may only be an unranked agent of the SSR, he was very familiar with each and every one of the higher ups in the camp and could easily make things difficult for them.

"Just a bit of training, sir," Hodge said.

"I wasn't aware training involved potentially landing one of your fellow recruits in the infirmary."

"Just giving him a few pointers on his fighting stance."

"Yes, the way he was laid in the mud not even half a minute ago is testament to your teaching abilities," Harry drawled. "Leave and hope I don't see you sent home for this."

Both Hodge and his companion did little to hide their anger at being ordered around by one they didn't believe had earned that privilege, but still wisely did as instructed and stalked off to be generally unpleasant somewhere else.

"Thanks," Rogers panted, weak breath whistling through potentially damaged lungs. "I had 'em though."

Harry frowned as he took in the poor state the man was in. "What in the world possessed you to try and fight those two?"

"They were disrespecting Agent Carter. Saying crude things about her…"

"It likely wasn't anything she hasn't heard a thousand times before," Harry pointed out. "It's something she's had to grow used to being one of the only women in her line of work."

"That doesn't mean I have to sit back and listen to."

"But you're small." Harry hastened to correct himself the moment the words left his lips and Rogers puffed up in indignant rage, preparing for a second round even while he attempted to stem the blood gushing from his nose. "I don't mean it as an insult, only a fact. Nearly every man here outweighs you by a significant degree but you always seem to be picking one fight or another with them. It's almost as if you actively go looking for them."

"I don't actively go looking," Rogers said petulantly, "but…"

"But when you see an injustice you can't turn away from it." Harry couldn't exactly fault him for that, half of the trouble he landed himself in was for that very same reason.

Rogers seemed to sense the lack of mockery in Harry's regard for him, his tightly wound shoulders loosened just a notch and he finally stopped glaring at him. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," he said. "I may lose a couple teeth, black my eye, or break my nose, but I refuse to do _nothing_."

Harry's head unconsciously tilted a bit to the left as he found himself looking at Rogers in a new light. "Hm." Was the response he finally settled on before turning and carrying on to his original destination.

"He's an odd one, Rogers." Was how he greeted Erskine.

A slow smile spread across the older man's face. "Does that mean you approve?"

"Something tells me you already have your heart set on him, so I may as well make it easy on the both of us."

* * *

The day to choose the first candidate for the procedure arrived, the incredulity and even anger among the ranks of soldiers when it was announced to be Rogers had been expected, but anyone who had carried on even half a conversation with Erskine would have known that there had never been anyone but him. Even if Rogers himself hadn't seen it coming.

He met with the doctor that night, over a bottle of schnapps he wasn't allowed to drink and finally learned just how highly Erskine regarded him and why. As he listened to the man tell him the tale of his first attempt at the serum and how horribly it failed, only one thought lingered in his mind.

"In all of the time since, I've been the only one you thought deserving of the serum?"

Erskine paused to take a careful sip of his drink, then shook his head. "No, there was Harry."

Steve could do nothing to hide how taken aback those words left him. " _Harry?_ Then why…did you take back the offer?"

"He refused it."

"I don't understand why…."

"It has been almost a year since I met Harry. When I did he was much sadder, he was unhealthy and alone but he viewed the world and those within it with such kindness. He had very little but he was willing to give even that up when he thought it fair." Erskine smiled, small and nostalgic. "It had been so long since I'd seen such untainted generosity. Unfortunately all I could see was how great of a soldier I could make of him when he had no desire to fight, he had endured enough already in his short time. When I offered he turned me down, but I couldn't bring myself to cut ties with him, so he remained by my side and from then to now I have learned and gained much from him."

"Is he…"

"He is like the son I lost. I feel great pride when I look at him and know the world will be much emptier once he's moved on."

"Moved on where?"

"He is here only for a short while. Only until he has the chance to return to those who understand him as not even I can. It will be a sad day when it happens, but still I feel grateful for even this short time of knowing him."

"He sounds like the kind of man I'd like to be," Steve said, just the slightest bit intimidated.

"Oh no," Erskine laughed. "He is kind and generous and gentle, but he is just as much stubborn and hot headed and ruled by his emotions. I could not deal with a second one of him. Be you and be-"

"- _good._ Yes, I will."

Erskine smiled and patted his leg. "Then you are already just as great a man as he is."

* * *

It had come as a surprise to many when Erskine insisted on having Harry on the floor with him during the procedure, as far as most knew the young man was only the doctor's ward, there for moral support and nothing more. But Peggy, Howard, and Phillips knew better; the part magic had to play in the administering of the serum was minimal and would likely have no side effects, negative or otherwise, but Erskine wanted him at his side just in case something were to go wrong. Harry had protested that his training was minimal, he wasn't sure there was much he could do if anything at all. Erskine was of the belief, however, that an untrained wizard was better than no wizard, and if he couldn't save Rogers from any potential magical backlash he could at least prevent the complete ousting of his race in some way or the other.

So there he stood, among some of the most brilliant minds this decade had seen, tasked with the simple but no less onerous job of administering penicillin to one of Rogers' skinny arms.

"Try to avoid puncturing any of his arteries and all will be well," Erskine had teased only to backtrack the statement when he saw how terrified he'd rendered his charge. "It's a joke. That's not even possible, he will be fine."

"Maybe someone a little more qualified should do this."

"There's not much too it, kid," Howard said, half his attention focused on doing one last check over the pod's control console and half his attention on Harry and Erskine's muted conversation. "Just poke and push. Not too fast though or you'll give him an embolism and stop his heart."

"He won't," Erskine said just as Harry gave a quiet mewl of terror. "You won't."

Howard snorted, finally taking pity. "It's a minor fear on a laundry list of things that could go wrong. Don't worry about it."

"I'll still worry about."

Erskine clasped Harry on the shoulder before pressing the admittedly intimidating needle into the palm of his hand. "No time now." He gestured to where Rogers was settled into the vita ray capsule, looking impossibly tiny and all too easy to kill with just a single syringe and an unsteady hand. "It is time to begin."

They split ways, Erskine to a clunky mic to address those gathered in the viewing amphitheater looking down on the lab and Harry to the small platform bearing Rogers and the pod.

"You look cold," he observed, a small smile tilting his lips to belay his teasing.

Rogers snorted and wriggled a bit in a vain attempt to find a more comfortable position. "Stark mentioned this thing will turn into an oven once the procedure's begun, so I'm appreciating all of the cold while I still can."

"You'll survive," Harry assured.

"How are you so sure?"

"You don't want to disappoint Abraham, that's incentive enough."

Rogers looked lost for a response, but Harry had already turned his attention to giving the smaller man's arm a cursory wipe with a bit of alcohol before injecting the syringe and its dose of penicillin into the meatiest part of his arm.

Rogers looked even more terrified of the process than him, but it passed quickly and with no accidental deaths by embolism.

But then it was time for the real thing.

The needles connected to the vials of serum unsheathed from their metal casings with a series of terrifying hisses, Rogers jolted when they burrowed into the muscles of his arms and flooded his system with the electric blue liquid.

Harry remained close by even as the others scurried several steps back when the capsule moved to stand vertically and enclose Rogers in what would either be his cocoon or his tomb. He wasn't sure what he was looking for exactly, but he hoped that if the magical additions to the serum were to go wrong he'd be able to sense it somehow.

He could sense Erskine close by his side, one hand resting bracingly on his shoulder as he barked orders and surveyed the progress, but his focus remained narrowed in on Rogers and the capsule. He couldn't afford for anything to go wrong, this was his only chance at making it home. Even when the light emitted by the rays became near blinding and Rogers' screams reached a pitch that had everyone assembled scrambling to ensure he didn't die within the metal sarcophagus he remained still and intent.

But the man within proved his strength of will once more, insisting on carrying on despite the agony he must be enduring. And when he emerged he was wholly transformed, it had worked and Harry could almost cry because this was it. This was his way back.

He turned to seek out Erskine, they had been separated in the rush of bodies that had clustered around the platform in a desperate bid to see and touch the man who had been changed and the one who made it possible. He could just barely make out the golden blonde of Rogers' head, suddenly taller than everyone in the room, and began to push his way toward him. If Erskine were anywhere it would be by his side. His thinner stature and diminutive height made reaching him remarkably difficult, but a liberal use of pointed elbows saw him through. Before long he had Erskine in his sights, he was at Rogers' side looking at the man with unconcealed awe.

Unseen to him and all but Harry, was a reaper at his shoulder.

Harry took one step, desperate to reach the man before the reaper could inflict irreparable damage, but then there was a burst of fire and molten glass that threw him from his feet and across the room. His head met the unforgiving edge of one of Stark's machines with enough force to temporarily black his vision. But he shook himself and the stars dancing across his eyes and struggled to his feet just as there was a crack, then another, and another, muffled both by his suddenly damaged hearing and screams from all over. Gunshots.

Harry found his footing at the very same moment Erskine lost his, three perfectly aligned splotches of red blossomed across his chest.

"No," he gasped, lurching forward to intercept the reaper as she knelt to collect a soul he wasn't willing to see parted. "Leave him."

There was no malice in the reapers gaze as she looked down on him, only surprise and worry. "I must."

" _Leave._ " The single word tore from Harry's chest in a snarl that surprised even him. The reaper surveyed him for one moment longer, then she was gone.

She would be back or another like her, of that Harry was certain. He wasn't sure how long they would heed his words and leave the soul, he had to heal the man, bring him back from the verge of death before they did.

The jacket torn from his own shoulders was folded into a tight pad as he pressed it into Erskine's chest, but the blood didn't slow. Within seconds it had soaked through and bubbled between his fingers.

Somewhere behind him he could hear Phillips barking orders, he could see both Peggy and Rogers dashing from the room, after the would be assassin, but he had eyes for no one but the man weakly attempting to grasp his wrist.

"Can you heal him?" Harry allowed only a quick glance up to meet Howard's gaze, the man was singed at the edges but otherwise unharmed. "With your magic."

"I don't know any healing spells, I never learned, but sometimes I don't need it, sometimes my magic just listens." He tossed aside the soaked jacket, it was doing no good anyway, and laid his bare hands over the wounds. "Make them move, I need space and quiet."

Phillips and Howard leapt to herding the terrified and wounded scientists and politicians away from the capsule and away from Harry and Erskine, none of them were trained in any life saving techniques so they were only in the way.

Harry and his magic had a strange sort of bond, he'd relied on it for much of his life, even when he hadn't know what it was he was relying on, to protect him first from his cold relatives then from the cruelties of the wizarding world. It had always been there when he needed it most, not once had it failed him, but since the Hallows it had changed into a power he no longer recognized, no longer trusted. And for this he shied away from it, neglected it, an issue that became even worse after his displacement in time, and now that loss was becoming apparent in how much slower it was to come to his aid, its response was sluggish and unsure of his intent.

"Please," he begged silently, digging deep within himself for some ounce of power to help him heal the man who had grown to be so important to him. " _Please._ "

But there was nothing, his fear and neglect had weakened the bond with his magic and he was paying the price.

"Quark."

Harry gasped out a sob as something colder than terror settled in his gut. He looked into Death's eyes and saw the desperation in his own mirrored in those twin pools of ink.

"Leave."

Even as he spoke he knew the words would not have the same power as they had had before, Death was not a reaper and he was not his master.

"He has done all that he can in this world." Death's words were hushed, kinder and gentler than Harry had ever heard from the entity. "It's time now for him to go on, see his family once more."

"I can save him," Harry pleaded.

"You would damn him." A hand, cool as bone settled on the back of his neck. "Quark, he cannot be healed, he cannot be saved. You are only prolonging his suffering."

"He's all I have."

"There will be more. He is not your only way."

"This isn't about the serum." Harry snapped. "This isn't about finding my way home. He's important to me. You can't take him."

"Harry."

The young man in question jolted at hearing the weak rasp from the dying man's throat. He turned his attention away from Death to focus wholly on Erskine.

"You fight Death for me." Trembling lips stretched across blood stained teeth in a weak but no less genuine smile, Erskine's eyes flickered up and with another jolt Harry realized that he could see his companion. "You are good. So good."

"I would do worse to see you remain alive." Harry wrapped his hand around Erskine's, his grip tight enough to hide the way they were both shaking.

"I ask though that you don't. Don't destroy yourself to save me, I will find peace."

"I can't lose anyone else," Harry whispered, his voice broken even to his own ears.

"I won't be lost. There is nowhere you will go that I won't be." Erskine's free hand reached up to cup Harry's cheek. "I'm not afraid, I am ready. I will see you, Harry."

"Yes," Harry choked. "Tomorrow."

"No, never so soon. But one day again."

Erskine breathed only once more after his soul parted, long enough for him to bestow his charge one last upturn of his lips, an attempt at comforting even in his final moments.

"He will find his way with ease." Death cradled the soul gently, reverently. "He has earned his peace."

Harry nodded, head bowed low over the still body. "He did."

Death departed without another word as footsteps approached from behind, Howard come to see for himself why Harry had fallen still. "Is he…?"

Harry nodded sharply. "I couldn't save him."

"You tried, kid. No one blames you for not being able to do what we couldn't either."

"I should have been able to." Harry swiped angrily at his eyes. "I should have…"

He stood and without another word left the room.

Something was curdling in his gut; not anger or despair, not even grief. Betrayal. And shame. His magic had betrayed him, abandoned him at his most dire hour. But perhaps it was his fault. Perhaps he might have been able to save Erskine if he weren't so much of a coward. Afraid of something that was within him, _a part of him_.

The desk in the closest unoccupied office found itself suddenly and violently upended. Soon to follow were the half a dozen chairs neatly arranged around it, then the small cart meant for holding refreshments. All were displaced and destroyed without a single use of magic. Why should he use it to express his grief when it, in part, was the reason for it to begin with?

But soon he ran out of inanimate objects to take his anger out on, and only one skin splitting, bone rattling blow to the wall dissuaded him from trying to find a release for his emotion through that method. So he slumped to the ground, not even close to exhausted but suddenly without an outlet and no desire to find another.

He wasn't there for long before he was intruded on, Peggy arrived, ash was smeared across her face, her hair was more disheveled than he'd ever seen, and there was something tight and angry in her expression.

She didn't speak, just carefully picked her way through the aftermath of his raging emotions and stopped to kneel directly before him. She took the bloodied, mangled hand he had cradled to his chest in hers and surveyed it with a frown of disapproval.

"Did you catch him?" Harry spoke before she could, not at all in the mood for a lecture.

"No. Cyanide capsule."

Unconsciously, Harry clenched his injured fist, a sharp pain radiated all the way to his elbow and Peggy glared sharply at him.

She stood and left the room without another word, but returned in a matter of minutes with a handful of gauze and a brown glass bottle.

"I don't think it's broken," Peggy said inspecting his bloodied knuckles, "but you'd do well not to put too much more stress on it or you'll wind up hurting yourself worse."

Harry hissed when she smeared the contents of the bottle, iodine, across his knuckles, sopping up the worst of the blood.

"The senator will want to speak with you," Peggy said as she began wrapping his hands almost painfully tight in a strip of cloth bandages.

"For what?" Harry scowled.

"You were Erskine's protégé and you worked closely with us all on this project. They'll want to know if you have any knowledge of how to recreate it."

"I'm sure his notes can tell you more than what I can."

"They won't. Erskine was suspicious, and for good reason it seems, his notes would give some insight into the creation of the serum but only he knew the exact formulas and contents."

"I certainly hope they don't think I know," Harry scoffed. "I wasn't his protégé, only his ward, his companion. I helped him find a few plants but I know very little about the serum as a whole."

"Tell them that then. It'll take some persuading but they'll believe you eventually."

Harry shook his head. "I don't know if I can go back out there."

"You can." Peggy took his hand and smiled, heartbreakingly sad but still full of reassurance. "Because I will be right there with you."

He hesitated for only a sliver of a second, then reluctantly took the hand Peggy held out to him. He was no longer surprised by the strength she possessed and how easily she was able to haul him to his feet, but he stumbled nonetheless when she did.

Phillips, Rogers, and the collection of government officials who'd been present for the serum infusion were waiting for them in the same room Harry had first been introduced to the core members of the SSR. The mood in the room this time around was noticeably different.

"Sit down, son," a man who introduced himself as Senator Brandt said with a falsely, fatherly frown. "I imagine you're worn out after this trying day."

"Yes," Harry said stiffly. "As a matter of fact I am. I'm ready to return home where I might rest, so I'll save us all the time you're about to waste in pointless questioning by saying that I don't know how the serum was created. The doctor didn't divulge his life's work to me."

"You spent the most time with him outside of all others in the SSR," a member of Brandt's entourage protested. "In all that time he told you nothing?"

"I'm not a scientist or a doctor, he knew I would have no understanding of what he told me." Harry gave them all the most scathing of condescending glares he had in his repertoire. "I was his ward, there in hopes of gaining some expertise in the medical field, he would never share information as sensitive as the makeup of the serum to me."

"Yes well, I'm sure you understand why we have to be sure."

* * *

They held him for hours, asking him the same handful of questions dressed up differently each time in hopes of tripping him up. But they didn't because he _wasn't lying_. Harry had helped Erskine find the balance his serum sorely needed through magical means, but he knew nothing of the serum's actual composition. Erskine had already perfected that years before he'd met Harry, his time in New York was spent only fine tuning it.

When he was finally free to leave night had long since come and Harry had fallen into a numbness that left deep lines of worry carving grooves into Peggy's forehead.

"I've called a car to take you home," she told him. "I have a bit more work left to do here but I can stop by and lend you some company when I'm through."

"Don't trouble yourself," Harry said. "I'll be awful company, I don't have much energy to do anything but sleep."

"It's not for my sake I'll be stopping by."

Harry mustered enough energy to roll his eyes in fond annoyance at her insistent mother henning. "Give me until tomorrow at the least."

"I'll bring breakfast." Peggy bent to press a kiss to his cheek. "Don't lie in the dark feeling sorry, try for some real sleep."

Harry knocked off a mock salute then stepped into the car she'd arranged to take him to the small room he'd rented out in a nearby tenement building. Erskine had offered him a place to stay in his own home, but Harry had turned him down for a bit of independence and now he was glad for it. It would have been impossible to return to a home he and the doctor had shared so soon after his death, he would have rather returned to the alleyway he'd happily left once receiving his first bit of money from the SSR.

Of course his own empty flat wasn't much better. The quiet and the dark were the perfect conditions for doing exactly what Peggy had told him not to do.

The fact that Erskine was dead wasn't one that had left his mind throughout all of the days events; from destroying the small office, to mutilating his fist, to spending hours convincing know it all politicians of his ignorance, that awful, niggling thought had festered in his mind. It was only now that he was alone was he reminded of a fact just as awful. Erskine was dead, his serum lost, and with it Harry's only way home.

They had Rogers, the answer to the serum was locked within his DNA, but even if somehow they were able to unravel its secrets with their primitive technology the likelihood of him receiving it now, without Erskine there to vouch for him were slim to none. He'd made a contract with the SSR, but the only person of authority aware of it was Phillips and he didn't know the man well enough to be certain he'd carry through on his end.

Losing the serum was almost as bad as losing Erskine, because without it he was right back to where he'd started. Only worse because he'd already established that this time period held no resources to help him find his way back forward, Erskine and his serum had been a desperate bid for a solution. The fact that he had lost it when success was literally a hairsbreadth away was crippling.

Peggy stopped by the next morning for breakfast and Harry put on a lovely act of healthily coping with his devastation for the entire hour she hung around. But the moment she was gone the palpable aura of misery, desolation, and utter hopelessness settled back over him as suffocating as a shroud.

He existed in that pathetic vat of sorrow in the days following, but then came time to lay Erskine to rest.

He'd been afforded nothing but the best; a casket polished until it gleamed, a headstone that shone ivory in the weak sunlight, a suit more extravagant than any he'd worn while still alive. Only Harry, Howard, and Peggy were there to see it all.

Erskine had been a kind man, he'd been well liked, but he was eccentric and reclusive and the sole surviving member of his family. All those who had worked with him felt a sorrow for his passing, but more in the sense that they were sad to see such a brilliant mind and all of his potential taken too soon, only a few knew him well enough to mourn the man beyond the mind. And so it fell to them to see him put to rest.

There was a bar afterwards. Too lively for the somber mood they carried with them but enough alcohol would remedy that inconvenience.

"They're carrying on as if he didn't mean something," Howard said, anger finally breaking past his melancholy after his third drink. "As if he wasn't an integral part of what this organization is. They already have me off building new weapons, they don't even care anymore about searching out answers in Rogers' blood."

"It's pointless, they know it just as well as we do." Despite being ahead of Howard by a full drink Peggy remained just as composed as always. "What Erskine did cannot be replicated."

"So we move on to bigger and better things then? Treat the work he devoted his life to, _gave_ his life _for_ , as if it means nothing."

"Yes," Peggy snapped, losing her composure for the single moment it would take to match Howard's anger and subsequently bring it down, "we do because we are still fighting, men are still dying. The serum was our best chance but it wasn't our only one. If we intend to not only survive but win we must look past our grief and anger. Erskine would want that at the least."

"It doesn't sit right with me."

"Or me," she scoffed. "But it's not about how I feel anymore."

Howard sighed, anger gone as quickly as it had come. "Then to England I go." He retrieved his glass from the bar top and took a healthy sip. "The SSR has a stockpile of HYDRA weapons they want me to try my hand at reverse engineering."

Peggy nodded. "I've been stationed in facility there as well, they'd like me closer to the front." She turned to a noticeably silent Harry with an expectant gleam in her eye. "I expect you to join us."

That finally sparked a reaction from the younger male. "I'm not actually a part of the SSR, Peg. I was there to help Erskine, now that he's gone I've no use for your cause."

Howard snorted derisively. "You sell yourself short, kid. We've got plenty use for you. Your magic and our science could do incredible things for our cause, they already have."

"I couldn't. I didn't join the war effort when Erskine asked because I don't have the resources to split my attention between it and finding my way home. And I _need to get home_."

"We could make the same arrangement you had Erskine. Your aid for ours." Howard pressed forward, almost as if her we offended by the doubtful expression Harry felt settle across his face. "We don't have a serum but we have other sciences and technologies that might do you some good."

"It's something to try," Peggy coaxed. "And if it doesn't work out you'd go with no trouble from us."

"Neither of you have the authority to make that promise."

"But we have the influence to convince those who do," Howard countered. "The SSR needs my brain and my money, hashing out a deal to have you work with me would be too easy."

"I feel like every deal I make with the SSR takes me a step further from a way home. I have so little control over the outcome."

"Think on it," Peggy said before Harry could give them an outright no. "We're not set to leave for a few more days anyway."

He was reluctant to, but Harry gave them at least a promise to think it over. He wasn't sure more time would change his reticence, he'd tried one mad, muggle scientist already and that had so clearly ended in disaster. But he had enough affection and respect for Peggy to promise her at least that.

Drinks were wrapped up soon after, even after plying themselves with alcohol they still couldn't shake the wrongness of being surrounded by such fun and vigor. Howard offered to drive the both of them to their homes but Peggy declined, citing she was right around the corner, an easy walk. Harry volunteered to escort her safely, after which he would make the trek back to his. It was a bit of a walk but the evening was nice and the fresh air might do him some good.

However, when he reached the block on which his tenement stood he carried on his steady pace until he'd passed the building and crossed over to the next block. It wasn't much of a surprise, he wasn't eager to repeat the three days of grief laden solitude and there was only one person left whose company he'd seek out.

Dark had fell not long after and all manner of reckless youth and no gooders crawled from their holes for another night of debauchery, but Ives could be found at none of his spots. It was prime time but he wasn't propped seductively on the lamppost just outside the dinner, or reclined on the stoop across from the pub, or waiting just out of sight but unmistakably there in the space between two dance halls. Harry knew them all and he went to great lengths to check each, but Ives was in none of them.

He allowed himself a moment to worry, the last time he'd seen the man he'd mentioned how much harder times were getting, he wouldn't have passed up a night as full of promise as this unless he had good reason to.

Already prepared for the worst, Harry set off to the last place Ives might be save for the hospital or, Merlin forbid, the morgue. He found relief though not yet answers when he arrived in the hall outside of his flat and heard some signs of life behind the closed and bolted door. But when he knocked sharp and clear to ensure he could be heard over the noise, a man unfamiliar to him answered the door.

They both took a moment to survey each other, the apartment's resident with a barely there frown of distrust and Harry with a look of wide-eyed confusion. He'd seen Ives only just the week before last, there was no way he'd been booted from his flat and replaced by this vaguely threatening gentleman in such a short period. Was there?

"Yes?" The monosyllable grunt in a voice deep as thunder did nothing to dissuade Harry's notion of the man's less than welcoming nature.

"I…I came to see Ives."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a friend."

The faint hostility coming off of the man became much more pronounced without him even twitching a cheekbone. "Don't know how you found him here, but it'd be best if you-"

"Hold on, Ray, don't scare this one off."

Harry nearly melted with relief when Ives appeared at the stranger's elbow, appearing at first glance entirely in one piece.

"He really is a friend." Ives shooed the man, Ray, back into the flat, before reaching forward to tug Harry in as well. "I wasn't expecting him tonight, but he's always welcome."

Harry faltered when, upon entering, he discovered Ives had guests. Along with the man Ray, there were already three other men gathered in the flat, all complete strangers to him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company." He would have stumbled his way back into the hall and all the way home after that awkward apology if it weren't for the steel grip Ives had on his elbow.

"I said you were always welcome," the older man said with a quirk of his lips. "The words just left my mouth, didn't they?"

Harry offered a weak smile. "I don't want to take up any of your time. I didn't see you at any of your usual spots, is all. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"You were looking for me while I was on the job for a reason." Ives took a moment to survey Harry's face and obviously didn't like what he saw. "You all right, Flash?"

The weight of four unfamiliar gazes on Harry's back caused a noticeable hesitation in his response. Ives, of course, realized the cause of his discomfiture in the blink of an eye.

"You want something to drink?"

"I just left the bar."

"Water then."

A hand on the small of his back directed him to the kitchen, it was tiny and there were no walls separating it from the living room, but the few feet of distance between it and the couch allowed for at least the illusion of privacy.

Once Harry had a glass of tepid water in hand, Ives resumed his concerned questioning. "What happened."

"My mentor…" Harry toyed with the rim of the glass without actually drinking from it, "he died."

"Oh." A gentle hand settled on Harry's arm, offering sympathy in the best way Ives knew how. "What happened?"

"Accident on the job." A stupid accident," he scoffed, "we should have been looking out for it."

"You all right?"

"Not really."

"You sure you don't want that drink?" Ives wheedled. "Me and the boys were just about to head out."

The reminder of the guests waiting for Ives caused another frown of apology to break across Harry's face. "You have plans. No, I don't think I'd be the best company right now."

"Hold on leaving so quick," Ives protested before Harry could beat a hasty retreat. "None of us are the best company right now. You'll fit right in."

Now it was Harry's turn for concern. "Has something happened?"

He was casually waved off with a promise to "talk about it later" but Harry was having none of that.

" _Ives._ "

The single stressor he put on the name made it clear he wouldn't be backing down without an answer. Ives sighed as if he hadn't just been wheedling answers out of Harry a handful of seconds ago. "I got my papers today," he admitted. "The second out of us this month."

Something like dread began bubbling in Harry's chest. "You got drafted?"

"It was only a matter of time."

"Do they know about…"

"Nah," Ives shook his head. "They don't and they won't. I'm good at playing normal for the straight-laced. I'm not trying to get that blue ticket."

It took Harry a moment to understand what he was referring to, but when he did, "But if you do you won't have to fight."

Ives snorted, incredulous at the mere idea. "And I won't have a home, a job, nothing to come back to here. Everyone would know what I am and I wouldn't survive a month. At least on the front I have a fighting chance."

And wasn't that a kick in the jaw? Ives had more of a chance surviving at war than he did as an out and proud queer on US soil.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Ives queried, brow raising in confusion.

Harry shrugged. "That we're stuck in a time like this. Are you afraid?"

"Maybe a little. But I'm ready to help end this sorry fight. And maybe I'm a little excited by the thought of making a difference."

Harry could no longer sympathize with that line of thinking. He'd gone into his fight with Voldemort with that exact mindset and came out all the worse for it. "You're a better man than I am," he said. "If I were in your place, I don't think I'd be able to fight, not for these people who see you constantly hiding for fear of being condemned and ridiculed and killed because of something that's none of their business. You could die in this fight, they wouldn't deserve such a sacrifice."

"Maybe not," Ives agreed. "But if I survive, if we win, maybe I can come home to a place where the people are a little more willing to tolerate sort like me after all we put on the line for them."

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just a cynic."

"Nothing a bit of drink can't cure. None of us are in the mood for a party, but after the days we've all had, maybe it's exactly what we need."

Harry looked down at himself, still dressed in gloomy clothing he'd worn to the funeral. "I'm not dressed properly for a night out."

"That won't be a problem for long. Come meet my boys first."

Harry was dragged back to the area that could very loosely be dubbed the living room and officially introduced to the small group of men left patiently waiting. He'd met tall, imposing Ray already, but now that it had been established Harry was neither a spook or a John his demeanor had softened remarkably. He was still intimidatingly large, but the lack of folded arms and mean scowl went a long way.

There was also Stanley, built like a beanpole with a shock of ash blonde hair atop his head. Everything about the man from his pale hair and paler eyes, to skin thin enough to map out veins beneath gave him an air of one easily knocked over. Everything but the faintly devilish smile and gleam of something noticeably impish in his gaze.

Russell reminded Harry of Seamus, full of energy and dark humor, but with an innate kindness one could just sense when being around him.

And then there was Elton, roughish and confident with a gaze and a leer that made something faintly embarrassed squirm in Harry's stomach.

"Harry's been a good friend these past few months," Ives said once Harry got to know the names of all of his present companions. "He's good and discreet, I trust him about as much as I do you guys."

"That's saying something," Russell observed.

"He earned it." And the way Ives spoke those three words effectively shut down any other misgivings the four men might have had. "I was thinking he could join us for drinks. Rough day, same as ours. But first we've got to get him looking sharp."

"I might have brought a thing or two that could fit him with the right padding," Stanley gestured to a bag set just behind the door.

It took Harry a moment to catch on to what the man meant by padding, within seconds he'd turned bright red all the way to his roots. "I've never worn a dress before," he admitted with a feeble cough of embarrassment. "I'm afraid I wouldn't look very good in one."

Ives traded a glance with Elton, one part exasperated and one part knowing. "He actually believes that," he said. "He's not saying it to try and fish some compliments outta you. Don't worry though, Flash, I'll set you up in something you're comfortable in."

The process of making a selection from the collection of pressed slacks and starched shirts Ives presented him with was honestly more difficult than Harry though it had any right to be, he hadn't the slightest clue on what would be best to wear out for a night dancing. He'd seen it often enough in the halls he'd visited, but he didn't know the first place to try and start replicating it.

Eventually Ives, sensing his dilemma, stepped in to help with a fond exasperation. "I'm afraid I don't have the full suit," he said as he pressed a pair of dark slacks into Harry's arms followed by a crisp white shirt and a set of suspenders. "But this works almost as well."

Ives was about the same build as Harry, having been living off of rations for so long, although he was just tall enough where the height difference between the two of them was evident in the way the shirt's cuffs dangled nearly to Harry's fingertips and the pants dragged at the heels. A few pins put that to rights then Ives accomplished what Harry thought to be the impossible by wrangling his hair into a parted sweep that could almost be mistaken for neat.

"Don't he just look heaven sent?"

Harry laughed at the proclamation, sure his clothing were a bit neater and his hair remarkably tamed, but honestly he looked no different than most days. Ives, on the other hand, was already stepping into a pair of pleated navy slacks and a pressed white shirt that left Harry with the smallest spark of envy over how effortlessly handsome he made the set look, especially considering, just two weeks before, he'd been marvelous in a loose dress and burgundy lips.

"The hall we're headed to doesn't mind when two fellas get a little closer than might be proper," Ives explained when Harry asked why he'd opted for pants and a clean face that night, "but with two of us shipping out so soon, we want to play it safe. Just in case."

Rodwell Hall was the spot Ives had been referring to, it was private and ultra-exclusive, no doubt for good reason, but once they were through the doors Harry found the space to be just as lively, if not more so, than any other halls he'd been to.

Harry allowed Ives to buy him just one drink, he'd already had too many with Howard and Peggy, but the moment he was done nursing that glass he was dragged out onto the floor.

"I don't dance!" he tried to protest.

"Good thing I do," Ives grinned. "And I'm the best teacher there is.

Harry warily eyed a couple several meters away who were whipping and swinging at a pace furious enough to make his stomach turn. "You'll be no good of a dancer or a teacher when I break your ankles attempting _that_."

"You're a while away from a proper Lindy," Ives laughed. "No, I've got something easy for you. Just put your arm like this." He tucked Harry's left arm over his outstretched right and had him settle his hand on the outside of his bicep. "Now just mirror my steps."

The steps Harry was meant to be mirroring _looked_ easy enough, he only had to rock back on his foot and do a few side shuffles. But the actual execution was…lacking.

"It's only your first shot," Ives said as he tried to suppress his amusement at Harry's awful failure. "Look, just rock step, left, right, left."

"The hell is a rock step," Harry muttered, mostly to himself as he attempted to copy the move in synch with Ives.

"Stop thinking."

"I established long ago that that's not possible."

"Stop thinking _so hard_. It looks like it hurts."

Harry glared at Ives, only to squeak in disconcertion when he was forced into a quick spin under his arm.

"That almost looked like a dance step. And my ankles aren't broke yet so you're already doing better than you thought you would."

"Better is relative."

"Mm, maybe so. How about another drink to help loosen you up?"

Harry almost groaned in relief, he was probably getting close to having had too many, but he was willing to risk getting drunk if it meant getting off the dance floor.

"Giving in already?" Russell teased when they slid into the two open seats at the bar.

"We'll need to get Harry good and drunk before he's any kind of dancer."

Ray tilted his glass in toast. "Lucky we got all night."

Ives laughed even as Harry felt something like trepidation settle in his guy, the lip of his glass met Ray's with a resounding clink. " _All night_."

* * *

" _I got nipples on my tittes, big_ _as the end of my thumb; I got somethin' between my legs'll make a dead man come."_

Harry's laughter was touched with just a hint of mania as he watched Elton and Stanley twist down the street, singing their filthy song loud and boisterous as they performed the dance moves he couldn't do sober while far past drunk.

" _Baby won't you shave 'em dry. Want you to grind me baby. Grind me until I cry._ "

"Can't even count how many times we've near been nailed by a coupla bulls 'cause these two mooks are sloppy drunks," Ives muttered conspiratorially from where he was propped up on Harry's shoulders.

"You're not as sober as you might think, either," Harry confided.

"Yeah, well least I'm not sloppy about it."

"At least there's that."

Ray's toast had seemed almost like a challenge to Ives' crew. Immediately after they'd begun plying themselves and Harry with all the alcohol they could get their hands on. Harry had had to tap out when the room around him began spinning, but the others were too occupied in pickling their livers to notice.

Ives and Harry wound up the least messed up out of everyone, though that still wasn't saying much, while Elton and Stanley were, unquestionably, the worst off. Ray and Russell were at a happy medium, though even that was on the wrong side of too drunk, they'd spent the entire walk back to Ives' building whispering conspiratorially to each other and giggling like school girls.

"I've only got two blankets to spare," Ives said when they finally made it up to his flat after no doubt pissing off every resident of the building. "So they'll have to share. My beds big enough if you want to bunk with me." He leered playfully when Harry raised his brow at the proposition. "I won't try nothing funny. On my honor."

"You better not," Harry mumbled as he kicked off the shoes and slacks he'd borrowed. "I'm too tired to have to kick your arse."

Ives laughed, quiet enough not to rouse the already flagging four. "Go on and get settled in, I'll take care of these guys."

The bed _was_ big enough to fit two men of their size, although it would be a squeeze. He hesitated only briefly before burrowing under the covers. Sharing beds with anyone had never been a part of his pastime, even when he'd been stuck in Privet Drive that one bit of space had been his, but Ives was a good enough friend to keep things from getting awkward and he really did trust him not to try anything. Drunk or not.

"Do you kick?"

Harry shuffled over to make room for Ives. "You'll have to tell me."

"Joy. At least your feet aren't cold."

Several minutes were taken to adjust and readjust until they'd each found the most comfortable positon in the slightly cramped space. They wound up facing each other, knees only barely touching and arms curled under their respective pillows.

"Don't mean to spoil the night by bringing it up," Ives whispered into the few centimeters of space between them. "But I really am sorry about your mentor. I saw all the good he did for you, even if I never met him I know he was a good kind of man."

"Thank you." The leaden weight of grief Harry had become all too familiar with since Erskine's passing settled back into its preferred spot right on the center of his chest. But then Ives reached out to grip his arm bracingly, and for a moment the pressure of it eased. "I lost a lot when he died."

"Do you need somewhere to stay now that he's not around? I don't have much but it could be enough until we got you sorted out."

Harry felt something warm within him at the unselfish offer. "I do have somewhere, thank you though. Peggy and the SSR actually offered me a job even though mine was meant to have ended by now."

"What do they want you to be doing? Fighting?"

"No. I've managed to dodge that so far. It's something to do with weapons I think, defense. They want me to go to London."

Ives was silent for a moment, then, "Do _you_ want to?"

"I didn't think I did when they offered. But taking time to consider it now…maybe. I don't have to fight, but I can still help the ones who are, ones like you. And the SSR offered to help me in return. I'm not sure if they actually can but if they're willing to at least _try_ …"

Ives surveyed Harry's troubled expression for a moment, his own was creased with worry. But then he smiled, soft and sad. "Sounds like you've just about made up your mind."

"Yeah." The realization wasn't as comforting as Harry might have believed it would be. "Maybe I have."

* * *

 **A/N: Finally after some amount of build up we're getting to the good stuff!**

 **Come say hi on Facebook and Tumblr (I also have a twitter but I've only posted like one thing .)**


	9. Chapter 9

There was one question that nagged at him. One he'd forgotten to ask in the days following Erskine's death and funeral. What was to happen to Rogers?

Howard had mentioned that night at the bar that the SSR had already given up trying to reverse engineer the serum through his blood as a lost cause, so that at least meant he was being kept locked up in some far of lab. But that still left all too many options. Was he to join the front with the rest of the US' soldiers? Form his own team? Become a covert operative for the SSR? Any of those options were viable.

The truth, however, was much more disappointing.

"He's teamed up with Brandt and the USO to travel 'round the country selling war bonds."

It took a long moment for Peggy's explanation to fully register with Harry. Erskine's first and final success, a literal _super soldier_ was gallivanting around the US in tights with a team of showgirls and a false Hitler. His mentor hadn't been buried long and he already must be rolling in his grave.

"I know what you're thinking," Peggy said before Harry had time to decide on a response. "I thought the same thing. But he wasn't presented many options, it was either that or be shipped off to a lab. He chose the option he thought would make the most difference, and, knowing the sort of man that he is, he won't remain there long, he'll find some way to the real fight."

"It doesn't make any less disappointing."

"I know. But I have faith in him."

"You would be the only one."

Harry was saved a reprimand from the older woman when their car came to a smooth stop at one end of a small airfield, owned, of course, by Howard. The man had left for London the day before to get started on his next SSR assignment as soon as possible, but he'd still allowed Harry and Peggy the use of one of his private planes to make their own trip to England a little more comfortable.

But even after they'd boarded and settled in, the conversation regarding the disappointment of a super soldier wasn't picked back up then or at all in the hours long trip.

It was strange being back in London, the architecture hadn't changed much in the sixty or so years he'd traveled. But just like New York the fog of war had touched and warped the city; there was less color, less cheer, everyone moved with a resolute purpose. And then there were the more tangible reminders of the war. Entire cities blocks had been decimated, bombed and reduced to charred rubble in the blitz. Seeing the city in such a sad state was jarring.

The facility Harry had been assigned to work out of was unnervingly close to the muggle entrance of the Ministry of Magic, less than a ten minute walk away. But he didn't worry (much), he'd been actively working alongside muggles for some time now, almost a full year at this point, and the Ministry had yet to descend upon him. If they hadn't yet, they likely wouldn't now. He'd still take precautions of course, but it seemed the measures put in place to enforce the Statue of Secrecy were much different in this time.

Howard and the SSR allowed him the day to settle in, get comfortable in the boarding house they'd set him up in and recover from the long flight. But on his second day back in London, it was down to business.

"Our job, in a nutshell, is to utilize whatever tools we have in our possession to arm our soldiers with the best weapons and supplements to keep them alive and whole long enough to see old Adolf tossed into the pits of hell." Was the introduction Howard presented Harry with his first day as an official agent of the SSR.

Unfortunately it left him with more questions than answers, the first one being: "Supplements?"

"Drugs."

"Erskine's serum wasn't the only thing the SSR's been trying to cook up, but it was granted priority because of its potential. For their everyday foot soldiers they're still looking for whatever can make them less susceptible to cold, exhaustion, hunger. You know those inconvenient human frailties, even if its temporary."

"And they want you to produce them?" Harry wondered. "I thought you dealt with mechanics, technology."

"You will find, my friend, that I wear many hats. Tech is where I'm at my best, but my intelligence goes beyond that."

Harry barely suppressed a roll of his eyes, it was going to be a joy working with someone with such a high opinion of themselves.

However, Howard quickly proved that while his hubris was _truly massive_ it was at least well deserved because the man was brilliant. He'd never had the chance to truly appreciate it while working alongside him with Erskine as his focus had been the vita ray machine, but just listening to him explain his newest project, a supplement that might dull the effects of wounds inflicted on the battlefield, most notably the blood loss, long enough to see get soldiers to some semblance of safety, reminded Harry all too much of the way Erskine once passionately ranted about his serum.

"And for you," Howard said once he'd finally run out of things to say on the project, "there are two things we can do for your situation." He reached into a bag tossed haphazardly onto one of the work tables, from it he produced a vial of dark red liquid. Rogers' blood. "We can try to reverse engineer the serum through this. Or we can go a different route, mix magic and science to go for something on a smaller scale but still just as effective."

"You have something in mind already?" Harry asked.

"I have the _start_ of something, soon it could actually be something."

"Of the two options, which do you think you'd have a better chance succeeding at?"

"That would be door number two." Howard carefully set the vial down between them. "What you wanted to do with Erskine would have worked, I'm almost sure of it. But I can't do what he did. The serum was a culmination of decades of study and training in sciences I can admit I've not even close to mastered. Maybe somewhere down the line, if I threw all of my energy and resources into it, I could do what he did, _maybe._ But the idea isn't even a little appealing to me, my mind and money are best suited elsewhere, and I'm sure you don't have twenty to thirty years to spare."

Technically, Harry did, but he wasn't at all keen on waiting that long. "So we start from scratch."

"In a way," Howard hummed noncommittally. "But if we can find a way to build off of your initial plan of enhancing your magic to get you home then we may not have to. It will take some work though. And time."

Harry didn't even blink. "I've got nothing but. Let's do it."

* * *

Harry would have liked to spend every moment in the day working with Howard on enhancing his magic, but the man did have real work to do, actual lifesaving products to innovate and create for the war. And Harry himself had signed on to aide in the production of those same products, that had been the deal he'd made to remain with the SSR and enlist the help of Peggy, Howard, and all of their resources to find a way home. So they split their time between the workloads as evenly as the could with the entire organization breathing down Howard's neck for the supplements.

It was four months before he managed to produce a batch of the highly experimental blood clotting aid that could be considered passable enough to be handed off to those in charge of testing and distribution. Harry's own situation was even slower going.

Howard had very little idea of how his magic really worked, and if he was being honest with himself, Harry didn't either, not beyond the basic point the wand and utter some half-Latin gibberish. Howard was convinced if he could understand the fundamentals of how it worked, how he could draw upon it and the magic of the Hallows, amplifying it would be a simple matter.

"We'll start with EEG." Howard held up cap of some sort covered in small metallic discs and protruding wires. "It's meant to track electrical pulses let off by your brain. If your neural activity when you cast is distinct enough we might have a chance at pinpointing what areas are most in use when you draw upon your magic and through that we can look at ways to amplify it."

"I don't understand at all how any of that might be done," Harry confessed. "Just promise not to do anything that might leave me a drooling vegetable and you can have at it."

"What about something that might put you in the ground?"

Harry confessed. "Dying's not what I'm afraid of."

"You've found yourself in the right place then."

Howard settled the cap over Harry's head and secured it with a strap beneath his chin. Then he had Harry cast, any spell he might think of was to be used while he monitored the readouts.

"You've got spikes that go a little higher than what could be considered normal brain activity," Howard said after nearly a full hour had gone. "But not nearly as much as you'd think would be happening considering how much power you're throwing around. I wonder what the difference in the magic from the Hallows might be, could you cast some of that?"

Harry considered the request for a moment before shaking his head. "None of my abilities from the Hallows are voluntary," he said. "They only occur in moments of stress and heightened emotion."

"Like a defense mechanism?"

"Exactly."

Howard hummed thoughtfully. "This should be enough to work with," he stopped to look over the readouts again. "Even if I don't know where the hell I'm going to start. What you do is against everything I ever learned. You're not just bending the laws of science with some of these spells, you're outright ignoring them. You're disproving theories and rules established _centuries_ ago with incantations you teach children."

"But you can work with it? Right?"

"Yes. Or at least I think I can, but not overnight."

"Just tell me what I need to do."

"You won't need to keep casting for me, but I am going to need a more complete list of the different categories of magic you practice, if I can start breaking down the elements manipulated with each spell we might be able to get somewhere."

"I can-"

A sharp rap at the lab's closed door stopped Harry mid-sentence, before either he or Howrad could call out in response, Peggy was pushing the door open and entering the lab. Her easy entrance had the resident wizard rounding on Howard with a furious glare; he had sworn he'd secured the room before Harry had begun casting, if anyone else had walked in even five minutes earlier that would have been the end of that secret.

Knowing that the younger man's ire was fully deserved but not at all willing to endure a tongue lashing from him, Howard turned fully away from him to offer Peggy his full attention.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," she said, eyeing the machines surrounding Harry with a hint of trepidation. "But something's come up."

That at least worked in temporarily distracting Harry from his irritation. "What's happened?"

"An infantry was attacked by HYDRA several days ago. Most were killed or captured but those who survived spoke of weapons that spat blue fire and disintegrated men where they stood. You're our resident experts when it comes to weaponry and the arcane so we'll need your input on this one."

The two men exchanged worried glances, Harry had never been called to provide his magical expertise on anything larger than the enhancements Howard was working on. "Where?"

Peggy sighed heavily through her nostrils. "Italy."

* * *

Captain America was in Italy. The super soldier had arrived just a day before they had and was scheduled to perform for the troops the evening of the next. Those first few hours Harry did an admirable job avoiding the man, mostly because he wasn't sure he'd be able to face Rogers without displaying some degree of his disappointment, but also because, from the moment he, Peggy, and Howard had touched down in Italy their time and attention was monopolized by the dilemma of HYDRA's newest weapons.

Of the two hundred men to go against Schmidt's forces only fifty had returned and none with anything more than the shell shook tales of disintegration guns and blue fire. They had all been too busy fleeing for their lives to collect even one such gun from the battlefield, so neither Harry nor Howard had anything at all to work with outside of the soldiers' testaments.

But the task of interrogating the traumatized men only kept him busy for so long, and by the time evening of his first day in Italy drew near he'd been cut loose for the night to mull over the next best move. It was then, of course, that he ran into Rogers, right before it was time for him to head to his performance.

His getup was ridiculous, the garish colors of the flag stitched into the tight mesh of his costume would have been funny if the very sight of the man didn't leave something leaden in Harry's stomach.

They caught sight of each other at just about the same time, and while Harry would have been more than fine with carrying on his way, Rogers immediately readjusted his course to intercept him. He halted a good meter away, growing noticeably more hesitant the closer he drew. Perhaps he could sense the disquiet Harry was already beginning to radiate being in his proximity.

"I didn't expect to see you so close to the front," Rogers said, as an awkward attempt at a smile quirked his lips.

"I could say the same for you."

The smile was immediately replaced by something that could almost be interpreted as bitter. "Yeah, the senator thought I might be of some use lifting the spirits of the men out here."

Harry looked pointedly around the camp; they weren't even a full week into November yet but the bitter chill of early winter had already begun to descend upon the place, an earlier rain shower had left every tent and barrack soaked in mud, and the place stunk of gunpowder and discontent. Then he looked at Rogers, mockingly cheerful and perfectly groomed in his bright suit and shining boots.

He wilted under the stare alone, catching every word Harry hadn't said. "I didn't say I agreed with him."

"But when the senator says jump…"

"I didn't ask for this." Finally something more than the hangdog expression he'd been sporting since the start of the conversation flashed across Rogers' face. It reminded Harry of what had convinced him to agree with Erskine about Rogers being the right candidate for the serum. "When I signed up to become this it was with the intention to fight, I wanted to do some good, not sell war bonds while others were dying in the mud and the trenches."

"Then why aren't you fighting?"

"Because that wasn't one of the options I was presented."

Harry didn't even try to hide his eye roll. "Erskine gave you a gift, Rogers, not just with the muscles and the strength. He made you special, he made you _valuable_. It's high time you started acting like it."

Harry would later feel bad for how harshly he'd treated "America's New Hope", he'd been nothing but sincere when he said the USO show hadn't ever been part of his plan. But in that moment Harry had been too blinded by the rage of seeing Erskine's work utterly wasted to feel any form of sympathy for him. He certainly would later, but by then Rogers would have already skipped camp to prove just how wasted his talents were lifting showgirls and motorcycles overhead.

* * *

Harry learned of Rogers' suicide mission only a few hours after he departed; for most it was meant to remain a complete secret, but he'd been called in to confer with Phillips because apparently both Peggy and Howard had assisted Rogers in not only skipping camp but also making it into enemy territory.

He wasn't all that upset that they'd gone AWOL and potentially committed some sort of felony, if he was being entirely honest he would have done the same thing if he'd been presented with the opportunity.

The problem was that he hadn't been presented the opportunity.

He would have expected to at least be warned by one of the two people he considered to almost be friends before they went gallivanting off to Nazi territory, maybe even invited to come along. Sure he couldn't navigate a plane, but he liked to think he was good for moral support.

Maybe he was just used to being one part of an inseparable trio and had considered Peggy and Howard to be suitable, temporary replacements until a time where he could return to the real thing.

"It happened so quickly," Peggy explained when she got back from the unsanctioned mission sans Rogers and noticed Harry's ill-concealed hurt at being left behind. "Rogers was in a frenzy and he needed a pilot."

"Don't let me make this about me," Harry assuaged. "You did something good. Reckless and stupid, which honestly I expected from Howard but not you, Agent Carter, but it was _good_. You didn't have any need for me there and you don't have to explain why I wasn't."

"We should have at least given you a warning before we just took off."

Harry waved her away as if he hadn't been thinking the same thing not much earlier. "I didn't even notice you had gone until Phillips pulled me aside. Just tell me what happened, _why_ it happened. What lit that fire in Rogers? Phillips wouldn't tell me anything."

"I let slip to him what happened to the 107th," Peggy said without hesitation. "He hadn't known about their recent losses. His friend was a part of the unit, his _best friend_ , and he had been among those captured. Phillips had no intention of sending men to retrieve them, it wasn't a battle he thought we could win, so Rogers decided to go in alone. He wouldn't be persuaded otherwise, I knew that, so I offered him the help that I could."

"Do you think he has a chance at making it out alive?"

"I want to believe he can. What he's capable of due to the serum is beyond incredible, if anyone could do it, it would be him."

Phillips didn't share her faith, especially after two days with no word from Rogers or the transponder he'd jumped with. Even Harry doubted enough to call on Death to see if Rogers had been ferried to the afterlife.

"I would have noticed a soul as unique as his pass through," Death told him, "even if it hadn't been reaped by my own hand."

"So he's lost then, or injured," Harry said, a surprising amount of relief sweeping through him at the confirmation. "Let's hope the serum is good for keeping him alive long enough to make it back."

And in the early afternoon of the third day it proved that it was. Rogers returned with not just the one hundred odd men from the 107th, but with men from at least a dozen other units who had been captured in the time before the 107th and written off as a lost cause just as they had been. With them came the guns he and Howard could do nothing without, and grenades and _tanks_.

Howard was in nirvana. Harry was just a bit more subdued. The energy emanating from the weapons was strange, _unsettling_. It was intense in a way he couldn't describe, especially in the way it caused his magic to roil within him.

"We still have no word of what powered these?" Harry asked. Cautiously he reached for the rectangular shaped grenade Rogers' had personally recovered from the HYDRA labs. At its exposed core it glowed with the same ominous blue fire he had heard many a tale about.

"No," Rogers said. "the prisoners were forced to assemble the weapons, but the process of actually powering them was done somewhere no one was allowed."

"What you hold is a weapon imbued with the power of an immensely destructive artifact."

Harry was slowly growing used to Death's unannounced visits, but he still nearly detonated the grenade in his hand from the jerk of surprise he was barely able to surpress. Carefully he set it down on the nearest worktable.

"I have to step out for a moment," he announced to the room at large before quickstepping from the lab. Death followed him like an eerie, black clad duckling into the closest room and waited patiently for him to close and seal the door behind himself, then he continued his explanation as if he hadn't even been interrupted.

"It is the space stone, one of six infinity gems."

"I don't even like the way those _sound_ ," Harry groaned.

"You will like them even less when you understand the full scope of their power. No man, especially no _mortal man_ , should be attempting to harness that power."

Harry could already feel he was going to regret asking the question, but he had to know. "What exactly can an infinity gem do?"

"Each represents a different facet of reality," Death explained, surprisingly forthcoming. "And so each is capable of something different. The space stone manipulates exactly that, _space_. Its master could go anywhere, be anywhere, if they were using it to its full potential they could be _everywhere._ "

"But it's being used to create weapons."

"That are said to be capable of disintegrating a man," Death stressed. "Wiping him from existence, _from space._ This mortal does not understand the danger he possesses."

"Then why not take it from him?" Harry asked.

"It is not my place.

"How convenient."

"If I could pluck the stone from that foolish little man's grasp and reap his soul in the most painful scenario imaginable just for deluding himself into believing he was worthy of even gazing at one such object I would do so with relish," Death snarled.

Harry felt his eyebrows climbing his forehead as he studied the uncommonly upset entity. "You're worried. Why?"

"The stone was meant to be hidden. The longer it goes unsecured and unaccounted for the closer you and your world will find itself to annihilation."

So much for being forthcoming, it felt as if every question was being answered with an increasingly confusing riddle. " _What are you talking about?_ "

"Thanos."

Harry groaned in horrified exasperation and threw his hands in the air. "Him again."

"Yes, him again. He gifted me what remained of the Heart but he would never be content without his own objects of power. The gems were his next best option."

"What does he intend to do with them? He already tried wiping out the universe and found it not to be to his liking."

"I don't know," Death admitted. "And I pray that I never do."

"The SSR intend to fight Schmidt, if they win they'll possess the stone."

"They cannot."

"Then who?"

Death had no answer for that.

"This isn't my fight," Harry said in the ensuing silence. "This war isn't my responsibility, but if there's anything I can do to retrieve this cube…I'm willing to try. If only to stop Thanos."

"That is noble quark." And the look that lit Death's face for just a fraction of a moment almost appeared _fond._ "But not even you are capable of wielding it, controlling it. One day, but not today."

"That seems to be the common problem when it comes to me," Harry sighed. "I'll keep working on that then, and in the meantime I suppose all we can do is hope this mad titan doesn't get wind of the stone's presence."

"I suppose it is."

Harry did his best to stifle the unease bubbling in his gut. Sitting back and hoping for the best had never really been his thing, but there was nothing more he could do. He made to exit the room, expecting Death to take his customarily silent leave, but the entity spoke up once more, pausing him midstep.

"Have caution when dealing even with the byproducts of the stone. It and the heart are two entirely different but incredibly powerful sorts of artifacts. That much power is not meant to mix."

"Duly noted."

Rogers had departed from the lab in Harry's absence, but he'd been replaced by Peggy who was watching a safe distance away as Howard poured over the assortment of weapons.

"The weapons are a product of something more than science," Harry said, wasting no time in announcing his return and relaying his newest discovery. "It's magic. _Powerful_ magic."

Howard looked up, shock written across his face. "How do you know?"

"I could feel it," the half-lie came easily, he didn't even need a moment to think it over. "That's why I had to step out, it's potent once I opened myself up to it. I needed to collect myself."

"So Schmidt…is a wizard?"

"No. This isn't magic my people ae capable of wielding. Whatever his source is, it's old and foreign."

"Foreign as in found only in the depths of uncolonized rainforests?" Howard hedged tentatively.

"Foreign as in potentially not from this earth."

"Well that's just great. Now there are aliens."

"I didn't say that," Harry refuted before the scientist could work himself up. "But the energy emitting from these weapons are unnatural, I know for a fact nothing from my world is capable of it." He hesitated for a second, considering how much he wanted to reveal. "I can say for certain that whatever Schmidt is playing with, it's powerful enough to annihilate us all."

"We won't give him the opportunity," Peggy said firmly. "He'll be dead before he even gets the chance. But in the meantime," she pinned the both of them with a stern glare, "you have the weapons you've been begging for, now we need a defense. Hop to it boys."

She marched from the rooms, her heels clicking ominously with each step as Harry and Howard rolled their eyes in unison.

"I'm looking forward to the day where the only person giving me orders is the woman in my bed," Howard sighed.

"The sooner we win this war for them, the sooner that day will come," Harry said with a commiserating pat to the other man's shoulder. "But until then, you heard her, let's hop to it."

* * *

There was very little science involved in the copious amounts of blowing shit up Harry and Howard got up to in the following days. But honestly there was no better way to study and understand HYDRA's weapons than seeing how they operated first hand, especially considering Harry wasn't any kind of scientist to begin with.

Their preferred method was simply setting up a line of dummy soldiers in varying forms of protections and armor and letting off round after round until they had all been reduced to nothing. And, surprisingly enough, they were able to learn much more than to be believed with the simple if not destructive method.

"They don't leave any residue," Howard noted as he walked along the line where the dummies had once stood. "No ash, no scraps of cloth, nothing."

"They're ripped from space. Vanished as if they were nothing," Harry said, reiterating what Death had told him once already.

"And your people can't do that?"

Harry shook his head. "Not to this degree. We can vanish objects, small animals maybe, not entire people."

"Is there a counter?"

"A good solid shield."

Howard sighed. "But these guns will vanish any shield we put in those men's hands and then them right after."

"Physical shields, yes," Harry agreed, but slowly an idea was beginning to take form. "But something magical based, _energy_ based, might be capable of deflecting this power."

Howard's face lit with interest. "What did you have in mind?"

"The energy from the weapons vanishes everything on contact, but it's able to be contained within the weapons for extended periods of time. Not only that, it's _powering_ them. What about these," he hefted the bulky energy gun cradled in his arms, "is so special to be able to hold that energy and not be vanished or melted or exploded from the amount of energy it's containing?"

"If we broke the weapon down," Howard said, realization dawning on him the same as it had Harry, "we could replicate the safeguards that stabilize the weapon into some sort of shield. Kid, you're invaluable."

"You would have figured it out eventually," Harry said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Maybe. But you did first." Howard's eyes drifted to the gun Harry held, behind his gaze his racing mind was clearly visible. "I have a few shield prototypes already lined up for Rogers, we could redesign them and have them mass produced. Actually breaking the gun down will be the tricky part, you saw how well dismantling the grenade went."

He had indeed. Taking apart the weapons hadn't been much of an issue, it was when they tried to handle the energy contained within that the results got a bit more explosive.

"Leave the energy alone for the time being," Harry suggested. "Our focus should be the mechanics of the things, the safeguards within, the materials they're using." He frowned when he realized how much mechanical knowledge would be required for such a task. "I don't think I'll be of much help when it comes to that."

Howard laughed at the reminder. "Don't worry, that's my area of expertise. I'll try my hand at breaking this fella down when you're a safe distance away."

Harry grimaced in thanks. "Did we want to continue studying the energy blasts in the meantime?" he asked. "Or am I done for the day?" It would be kind of nice to have some time away from the facility, it felt like majority of his waking moments were spent toiling for the SSR. And he really would be no help in dismantling the weapons other than handing over whatever tools Howard might have need of.

"I'll need your time for just a bit longer," Howard said, dashing his dreams of having a quiet night in. "You've been holding up your end of the bargain for some time now without any complaint, I figure it's my turn to hold up mine. Peggy and I had some time to talk it through on our way back from dropping Rogers off in Italy.

"There are some things we'll need to know before we can get into it though, more secrets you might have to share."

Harry sighed heavily. "I figured as much."

"I warned her to expect us sometime this afternoon, she'll be in office all day so we can't miss her."

When Howard and Harry arrived in her workspace with the request, Peggy seemed more than eager to step away from the monotony of her paperwork to join them in the privacy of the lab.

"That was quicker than I was told to expect," she said as she pulled up one of the few seats available in the room.

"We had a productive day," Howard grinned, opting to use the edge of one of the many worktables as his own perch. "I've got a bit more work cut out for me tonight, but I wanted to tackle our boy's issue before I sent him off home."

"Ah, yes. We did promise to, didn't we?" Peggy turned her gaze onto Harry, who had settled a bit nervously in the seat across from her. "I'm afraid the most I can offer is a second opinion and whatever resources I might be able to provide, it will be Howard doing most of the work."

Harry shrugged. "That should work just fine. But Howard said there were some more things you needed to know first. Secrets I would have to give up."

"Yes, well it never escaped our notice or even Erskine's that you never stated exactly were home was."

Harry was only just able to suppress his wince, of course that would be the secret they wanted unveiled. And he thought he'd been being subtle about it. "That's not so easily answered," he said evasively.

"When we spoke of it last you said it wasn't anything near as exciting as being from somewhere other than this world," Peggy pointed out. "Anything outside of that should be easy enough to explain."

"You'd be surprised, he could be like the guy from that Heinlein novel and home isn't where but when."

And of course Howard would be the one to hit the nail on the head while only joking. Harry could deny it of course and they wouldn't think anything else of it, but if he really wanted to get back it might be in his best interest to give up at least that secret. If he were being honest, there really wasn't much danger in telling them, Howard and Peggy had already made their vows, and more than that they'd proved to be trustworthy.

"Yeah," he said, choking down his hesitation, "that's about right."

Howard and Peggy laughed at first, assuming he was playing along with Howard's joke, but then they saw his face, grim and serious, and stopped short.

"You're taking the piss."

Harry couldn't help but laugh, the words were unusually crude coming from Peggy's lips.

"He sure as hell is," Howard agreed. "Ain't no way I'm going to believe you're some kind of time traveler come stumbling in from the past."

"I'm not." Harry said, his two companions only had a moment to exchange glances, triumphant at calling him out on the joke before he carried on. "You're the past, I'm from after."

"The future."

And saying it as deadpan as Howard did _of course_ made it sound far-fetched and ridiculous. But Harry only nodded. "It was two thousand and eight when I was displaced."

"That's…" Peggy floundered, trying to calculate the amount of time he'd traveled while still attempting to work around her disbelief.

"…sixty-five years."

" _How?"_

Harry shrugged. "It was an accident. We'd only intended to go back a year at most, but I have the worst sort of luck."

"So you intended to only break the laws of-of science and time and reality just a _little bit_ but ended up breaking them much more?"

"We messed up."

Howard shook his head, he'd taken finding out Harry had magic much better than this. "We need everything from the start."

"The start is a long way back." A small smile quirked Harry's lips. "Or forward."

Peggy glared at him for the ill-advised joke. "We have nowhere to be. Start at the beginning."

The beginning was the union of the Hallows, but with that came the power he was granted and the curse it had placed upon his world. He purposely refrained from explaining everything that came with being the master of the Hallows, specifically his relationship with Death, not because he didn't trust them but because they could barely wrap their head around the fact that he had been able to move back in time. Revealing that he spoke with the abstract entity that was _Death_ on a regular basis would leave them catatonic he was sure.

But he made up for it by detailing everything he was able to and believed he may be capable of doing, sans the whole reaping souls bit.

It was strange talking about it, he'd held these secrets so close to his chest since arriving in New York. Finally speaking such long held secrets was uncomfortable but there was also something cleansing about it, like he was finally unburdening a great weight that had sat constantly on his shoulders.

"She'd practiced the act of the ritual so many times," he said, speaking of that night in the manor, his last with one of his two best friends, "she knew what she was doing, but something still went wrong. Maybe in her haste she said the wrong word or drew the wrong rune, maybe because the time wasn't right, or because the ritual had been prepared for two to be sent back rather than just the one that was. I don't know. But whatever happened it landed me here, in this time, with you.

"There's nothing I can really do to prove what I've said," Harry continued when it seemed Howard and Peggy were too deep in thought to say anything. "It's not as easy as whipping out my wand and casting a few spells. All you really have is my word."

"We know you're not lying," Peggy said affectionately exasperated. "There'd be no reason to lie when doing so would only prolong us finding a way back for you."

"Not to mention, the idea is already so out there no one would choose to lie about it," Howard added.

"But I'm afraid I'm even more out of my league than I'd thought beforehand. Time travel isn't exactly something I'm well versed in. Could we see the ritual you used to go back?"

Harry shook his head. "That was one of the first things I tried to find when I began looking for a way home. But it's nowhere I've looked, maybe it hasn't been published yet. I can write out all that I remember from the ritual, but it's not much."

"No," Howard said, "Erskine was always better at working your magic into his science."

"You were relying on his serum to help you get home," Peggy recalled. "And now Howard is working at another method to amplify your magic, but how will having more power do you any good if you still have no idea how to put it to use?"

"It's not the magic I was born with that I want to amplify, but the Hallows. I did what little research I could on them and it's been hinted that they can manipulate the time stream, or rather my place in it. All I need do now is gain access to the power from the Hallows."

"So really all we need do is find some way to amplify your magic and you'll do the rest."

"Essentially."

Howard nodded. "Give me a few days and I'll have something for you."

Harry frowned dubiously. "Just like that? You'll have a solution."

"I've already been working on it, the reading from the EEG and the list of magics you and yours are capable of was a much bigger help than I'd thought. If I don't figure it out entirely I'll at least be on my way to. Tonight I'll work on the guns, tomorrow, your magic."

"It seems like you've got your work cut out for you then," Peggy said, she'd already begun to rise from her seat, sensing that the conversation was coming to a close. "Unless there's something else you need from us, we'll leave you to it." She held her arm out to Harry, a silent request to walk with her back to her desk. "Try not to kill yourself while no one's here to keep an eye on you."

"I've yet to make a promise I could keep, I won't start now." Howard's dark gaze settled on Harry for a moment. "Take tomorrow off, I'll have this figured out the day after."

Harry tilted his head in a nod of acknowledgment. "See you then."

"Well," Peggy sighed when they were in the lift on their way back up to her workspace, "that was rather enlightening. And productive."

"I'm sorry I had to keep that from you," Harry said, a touch sheepishly, but Peggy waved the apology away.

"Don't be. If I were in your place, I would have to. Just don't make a habit of it."

Harry could only laugh and nod in acknowledgment. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good boy." The lift came to a slightly juddering halt. "This is me. Go straight home and get some rest, I daresay these next few days will be rather eventful."

"What was it Howard said?" Harry said with a teasing quirk of his lips. "I've yet to make a promise I could keep…."

Peggy rolled her eyes. "He has the worst influence on you. But you'll do as I say."

"Of course."

Satisfied with the half promise, Peggy stepped from the lift at that same moment Rogers and a second man with an easy smile and a head of dark hair approached. Peggy murmured a quick greeting to Rogers and his companion before moving on while the two men joined Harry on the lift.

"Agent Potter," Rogers greeted with a duck of his head, "headed up?"

"Yes, I'd like to get out of here before Agent Carter finds another task to keep me 'occupied.'"

"It's a hard thing telling her no."

Harry smothered his smile at the clear affection in Rogers' tone. "It gets easier. But never _easy_."

"I'm not looking forward to the day she and Buck meet proper," Roger's nodded to the dark-haired man at his side. "They'd get on too well bossing me around."

"From what I hear it's a task getting you to follow orders," Harry noted with a small laugh. "Maybe you need the two of them teaming up against you."

"It'd save me a couple gray hairs," Roger's companion said with a sage nod, however the super soldier eyed his head full of flawless dark hair dubiously.

"You're as worried about your looks as the skirts you used to chase," he muttered. But then he straightened and flashed Harry a guilty look. "Oh, I forgot to introduce the two of you. This is Bucky…Seargent Barnes, I mean, my best pal. Buck, this is Agent Harry Potter, he was Doctor Erskine's ward and student."

Harry offered the man a smile and his hand. He'd heard plenty about Seargent Barnes, the one Rogers had run off on his suicide mission to rescue. He'd seen the man in passing when he'd first arrived to camp, beaten and battered and fresh from HYDRA's clutches, but he looked to be a whole new man after a few good night's sleep and some proper clothing.

"Call me Bucky," he said with a charming smile.

"Good to meet you, Bucky. Are you two headed into a briefing with Phillips?" Harry asked as the lift began shuddering to a halt.

"Just left it as a matter of fact," Barnes said. "We were thinking about grabbing a drink now that our day's through."

"You're welcome to join us if you'd like," Rogers offered.

Harry immediately shook his head. "Oh, I'm not much of a drinker."

"You're friends with, Stark."

"He drinks enough for the both of us," Harry laughed as he stepped out of the lift. "And then some."

"How about dinner then?" Harry felt his brow furrow in confusion at the offer from Barnes, he'd only just met the man but he seemed almost eager to speak with Harry. "I heard all about what you did with Erskine," he explained as if sensing Harry's confusion. "I'd like to get to know the man tasked with keeping Stevie alive, especially when I know from firsthand experience that it's no easy job."

"Not to mention we could really use a native to show us around a bit," Rogers tacked on.

Harry was certainly not the one for that particular task, London was sure to have changed a great deal in the sixty year difference between his times, but he was finding it hard to say no when faced with these two earnest men and he had nowhere else to be anyway. "I can't say I'll be much help showing you around," he finally conceded, "but I suppose a quick bite wouldn't hurt."

There was a vendor at the end of the block who boasted sandwiches made to order with bread baked fresh every morning. Just the sight of it sent a jolt of grief filled nostalgia through Harry but both Rogers and Barnes were taken with the idea of having their meals in hand and taking advantage of their small bit of freedom to roam about a bit.

"I'm buying," Rogers insisted when they stopped off at the cart, "but I don't know a thing about these British pounds so I'll at least need help with that."

Harry rolled his eyes in Rogers' direction, but didn't bother putting up a fight, he'd heard enough stories (read: rants) from Peggy to know that the man was just as, if not more, stubborn than he was. He simply helped the man count out the right amount of currency for the ridiculous number of sandwiches he'd collected and held his tongue.

The city wasn't all that great for a scenic walk considering the recent onslaught of bombings, so Harry steered them away from the storefronts and residential areas that had been hit the hardest and over to the rivers and docks. Soon enough, he found a familiar sight in the London Port.

He took a contemplative bite of his sandwich (corned beef, he didn't think he'd ever be able to eat a cold cut again without feeling some modicum of sadness) as he watched the bustle of crew and passengers scurry about the port and its many ships.

"I snuck aboard a ship here," he said, struck suddenly with the mood to share. "It's how I got to the States."

Rogers looked surprised by the admission while Barnes was merely interested. "Erskine never mentioned…."

"He probably didn't mention a lot," Harry shrugged, "he was good at keeping secrets. But this is where it started, the ship was called the Orion if I remember right, I'd never been on one before and that was an awful first experience. Unfortunately there was even less for me in the States than there was here."

"He _did_ mention that," Rogers said sheepishly.

"Yeah, well he was always a sucker for a good rags to riches story," Harry smiled fondly. "I slept in alleys and ate scraps for months before we found each other."

"And he took you in, taught you, even offered you the serum." This seemed to come as a surprise to Barnes who looked between Rogers and Harry with an inquisitive frown. "He didn't tell me why you didn't take it."

"I'm not a fighter," Harry said simply. "Not that kind. Not anymore. My talents could be used elsewhere, I wanted him to give it to someone who deserved it, who would put it to good use."

A deprecating frown turned down Rogers' lips. "And all you got was me."

Barnes bristled and Harry snorted. "You're more stubborn than a bull," he said, "and probably the most righteous person I've ever known, myself included…but you're not all bad."

"If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is," Barnes said, an enormous grin replacing the ire he'd been directing toward Rogers.

A matching if not slightly less boisterous grin settled upon Rogers' face as he dipped his head in that clumsy little nod he did. "Thank you."

Harry could do nothing but smile back. They'd gotten off to a rocky start that was certain, but maybe someday, one day, he could accept that the man was more than the cocksure asthmatic starting fights he'd never be able to win or the reckless super soldier wasting the gift he'd been given. Maybe he might start seeing him as someone capable of bearing the mantle he'd been given, someone _worthy_.


	10. Chapter 10

A little time away from the SSR and the sometimes seemingly fruitless work he'd been doing for them was something Harry had been craving almost since arriving back in London. Just a few days to himself was all he wanted, but once he actually got it his entire day off was wasted wishing he were back at the facility. Any other time that wouldn't be the case, he'd take the day off and catch up on some much needed sleep, but he'd been sent home the day before after being told Howard was finally actively working on getting him a way home and he _itched_ not being able to be an active part of the research and work.

He knew he would only get in the way though, there was nothing he or even Peggy could offer Howard to make his work go any quicker, so he grit his teeth and waited the day out with a patience that should have granted him a sainthood. And if, the next morning, he was back at the facility and heading toward the labs hours earlier than he usually showed up, no one called him out on it.

Howard was there when he arrived, already hunched over a worktable elbow deep in a giant, square… _something_ with wires and strange paneling spilling haphazardly from its core.

"You're late," he said around the wrench clenched between his teeth.

"I'm early actually." Harry stopped a good dozen paces away, too wary of the contraption to come any closer. "It's half past five."

"In the _morning?_ "

"I couldn't sleep."

"Try harder next time. Peggy's been on me about being a bad influence."

"You are." Harry tilted his head in the direction of the box-like device. "What is that?"

Howard brightened immediately, he beamed at the object with more pride than Harry thought a hunk of metal and wires really deserved. "It's a power core. For you."

"Me?"

"You." Grease smeared forearms finally extracted themselves from the device, it only took a few seconds to tuck away the wires and shut the panels, then Howard was hefting the thing into his arms. "Come on, I've been working all night on this for you."

Howard's lab was one large room with various dividers and glass partitions strategically placed throughout to separate certain projects from others. There were a few attached rooms, mostly closets to hold unfinished projects and designated storage areas for equipment and materials; it was to one of the larger of these storage rooms that Howard led Harry.

But where once there had been rows of shelves and unmarked boxes collecting dust within it, there was now an open space and some kind of control console running along the wall. The console wasn't very large, only spanning a few steps from end to end, and on its face were different meters and gauges Harry didn't even bother trying to understand. It was unfinished, he could at least tell that much looking at it, but something told him the core in Howard's arm would slide neatly into the gaping hole in the console's center.

"Is this for me also?" Harry asked.

Howard bobbed his head in an excited nod. "It is, actually. Or it will be once it's finished, this is mostly the bare bones." He hefted the core in his arm. "This will power the whole thing once it's finished."

"What exactly is it?"

"Your way home." A manic grin spread across Howard's face. "You told me before that your magic, specifically the magic of the Hallows, isn't something you can just call upon. The only times you've had access to it were in times of stress and heightened emotion. And that makes sense, it's protecting you, its host. If I can trigger that emotion, that stress, I can trigger the magic. Once the magic is triggered it'll be up to you to channel it, control it. The more you do it and the more comfortable you get wielding it, the easier it should come."

There was a long, long moment where Harry said nothing, honestly lost for words. "That's…that's brilliant." Is what his mind finally managed to formulate. "And _simple_."

"The best ideas often are." Howard didn't even try to hide his pride behind a mask of false modesty, and Harry couldn't even begrudge him for it. "We just have a tendency to overlook them more often than not for the…flashier, ideas. Myself included."

"So the machine is meant to trigger the stress in some way?" Harry guessed.

"No, actually. It's a suppressor, or well I call it a suppressor but what it really does is absorb and redirect. From the way you've described some of this magic, it's volatile maybe a little violent."

Harry nodded in vehement agreement.

Howard gave the unfinished machine a quick pat. "This absorbs that energy and feeds it back into the machine where its safely dispersed without causing any undue explosions and the like. I actually based the idea off of the energy gun defenses we thought up the day before. The stress trigger is actually this."

It was a small bottle produced from Howard's lab coat, containing only a few milliliters' worth of an unidentifiable clear fluid. "Adrenaline." Another bottle, this one full of a thick tar like substance in an unpleasant shade of bile green, came immediately after the first. "Mescaline."

"Mescaline? _"_

"It's a hallucinogenic."

"A hallucinogenic?" Something like an incredulous laugh burst from Harry's lips at the absurdity of the situation. "Like LSD?"

Howard shook his head. "I don't know what that is."

"Oh, trust me, you _will_." Harry eyed the vial of viscous liquid dubiously. "How is that even meant to help?"

"The hallucinations it will trigger, paired with the instinctive flight or fight made more intense by the adrenaline, will be the stressor you need to start seeing some reaction from your magic."

"Is it dangerous?"

Howard hesitated for only half of a second. "Separately? No. Together…I'm not sure. I'll have to run a few tests-"

"No, I'll do it. I'll be your test subject."

"Um, no. I mentioned already Peggy's been on my ass about encouraging your reckless behavior. She'll take my head off if I let you try this without having tested it beforehand."

"It won't do you any good to test it on an animal or even another human," Harry reasoned. "The Hallows make me a good deal more durable than the average man, or even wizard."

"Durable enough to survive a heart attack?"

Harry shrugged. "Yes?" For all he knew, it was true. He hadn't had much chance to explore the whole immortality side effect of the Hallows, but he'd already been assured something as mundane as a heart attack wouldn't be the thing to take him out.

"That wasn't even a little convincing."

Harry glared at the man. " _Trust me_."

"Sure, and when we both wind up dead, you because I pumped you full of two incompatible drugs and me because Carter will take my head off, you can be the one to sweet talk us through the pearly gates."

"I'll do you one better and persuade Death to give us another shot at life."

"You're a fucking cunt."

Harry perked up, not daring to fully hope his wheedling had actually worked. "Does that mean you'll do it?

"You're telling Peggy."

* * *

Harry made a big show of being against having to be the one to inform the terrifying woman of their admittedly dangerous plan, if only to make Howard feel a bit better about caving in to him. But the joke was on the scientist because all it took was one look in his eyes and the steel laced assurance that a bit of recreational drugs and adrenaline wouldn't be the thing to do him in and Peggy was, if not agreeing, at least not outright against the plan.

"You're not serious," Howard sputtered, outraged by her easy acceptance. "That's it? What about your lectures about responsibility? How many times have you told me off for being reckless and influencing him into doing the same?"

"Nothing I say will change his mind," Peggy shrugged. "And I trust him. If he says the procedure won't kill him, I believe him. He wouldn't risk dying and never getting the chance to return to his family."

"Well of course he's right. I know it won't kill him, even without whatever magical invulnerability he thinks he has, but a little indignation on your part still would have been nice. I can't even count how many times I've been chewed out because of my "reckless decisions". I was looking forward to seeing someone else on the receiving end."

"Would you like to try it again?" Peggy asked, mockingly serious. "I can put on a good show if it makes you happy."

Howard looked between the two of them for a moment, then heaved a put upon sigh and shook his head. "Not _that_ good of a show. Just next time he decides he wants to do something this reckless, because I'm sure it's going to happen, I expect you to put up some kind of fight."

"You have my word."

The older man sniffed haughtily, not fully appeased but at least aware that he wouldn't be getting much else out of her. "What I have is enough for just one dosage, but I have more on its way in if we need it."

Harry frowned in confusion. "What would we need it for?"

"We don't know how effective the stressor will be in regards to breaking past those barriers between you and full access to your magic, we won't until we've tested it. Chances are it'll take more than one try to see it done."

Harry's sigh was full of disgruntled mourning. "And here I was hoping this would be a quick fix."

"I'm afraid not, my friend." Howard gave him a bracing clap on the shoulder. "But at least it's a fix."

"How soon were you thinking to start?"

"I'll need a few days, a week at most. This," he gave the machine built to suppress any accidental magic on Harry's part a loving tap, "still needs a bit of work. Once it's done we have enough for a test run."

"I can wait a week."

And he could, seven days was nothing compared to the weeks and months he'd been waiting. He was a few days short of a month away from having been in this time for an entire year, and in that time he'd endured enough failures and disappointments to help temper the impatience he was so infamous for. It didn't make the wait any less torturous for him, but at the very least he wasn't driving his colleagues halfway to insanity with a constant badgering for updates. He kept himself occupied helping Howard where he could and, when he was only getting underfoot, shadowing Peggy as her unofficial secretary.

And then a week and a few days had gone, and Harry arrived at the SSR facility one morning to the notice that they were finally going for that test run.

"It's a lovely morning for some highly experimental and potentially deadly drug therapy, isn't it?" Was what Howard greeted both him and Peggy with when they entered the lab.

Peggy leveled him with a look that expressed just how _not funny_ she found him.

"Everything is ready then?" Harry asked, just a touch nervously.

"As ready as it can be at this stage," Howard shrugged. "Today is meant to let us know what we're missing, what needs improving."

A tilt of his head beckoned Harry and Peggy to the back of the lab where the room for the entire procedure had been set up. The small closet seemed to have shrunk even more in size, perhaps due to the formidable iron door that had replaced the previously flimsy wood, and the metal plates lining the walls from floor to ceiling.

"I commissioned a few chromium panels to be used to line the walls, in the event the suppressor doesn't…suppress, they should hopefully contain any magical blowout to this room."

Harry frowned at Howard in concern. "Is that a possibility? The suppressor not suppressing?"

The older man could only shake his head. "I don't know. I hope it will, I _think_ it will, but I don't know. I've never tried to build anything like it, no one has. Those shields we developed are the closest thing, but not even those are _this._ Until we let your magic rip at it full force we won't know."

"Explain to me again exactly how this is going to work," Peggy demanded, a small divot carving itself into the space between her brows.

Howard nodded, suddenly the epitome of patience despite having explained the entire process in detail to Peggy at least a half dozen times by now. That uncertainty she'd claimed not to feel regarding the procedure was obviously rearing its ugly head.

"The purpose of everything we're doing is to see you, Harry, stressed enough to grant you access to the magic of your Hallows, to do that, we'll start by restraining you." He gestured to one of the newer additions to the closet sized room, a bare cot like structure with several heavy and ominous looking straps running along its sides. "They're to keep you from dislodging the suppressor. Once we begin, neither Peggy or I will be allowed in the room with you, so once it's on it needs to stay on for the duration."

"I won't like that. Being tied down will only aggravate me more." Harry noted. "That's good."

"An unexpected benefit." Howard agreed. "Once you're secured, I'll inject you with our two drugs. I've come across a good few ways to ingest mescaline, but taking it intravenously seems to be the method that allows it to be most potent. If all goes to plan, it will begin producing hallucinations quickly, within forty-five minutes to an hour.

"The adrenaline will be injected slowly, it'll be around half an hour before you've been administered the full dosage, after which it should take effect in a matter of minutes. The adrenaline is acting as the stressor, it is what's going to get that reaction we're hoping for from your magic."

"If the adrenaline is the stressor, what is the purpose of the mescaline then?" Peggy cut in.

"Being distressed won't be enough," Howard explained. "We need a target, a supposed cause to the stress so that his magic has something it can attack. The hallucinations from the mescaline will do exactly that.

"But something we'll want as much control over as we can get is the nature of your hallucinations, what your mind is dreaming up. If it's something you've personally experienced and have felt threatened by before I can almost guarantee we'll see some kind of reaction."

"I've got a few things in mind," Harry said morosely. "So all I have to do is think about it?"

"Peggy and I will speak to you through the intercom, once the drugs are in your system it might be harder to keep your mind in one place, so speaking it aloud should help keep you focused."

"Recreational drugs and talk therapy," Harry sighed. "Sounds like a hell of a time. How long will this all take?"

"It'll be an hour for the drugs to take effect, after that it's fully dependent on how long it takes to get a reaction from your magic. I'd predict it won't be any more than two, two and a half hours before we see the results we want. Once we do, we'll gas the room."

 _That_ hadn't been mentioned in the plan before. "Gas the room for what?"

"The effects of mescaline can last up to twelve hours, more depending on the dosage and we're going for a _big_ one. We don't want you in constant distress for that entire time, so we'll sedate you until the worst passes.

"You'll stay here for at least another day after, so I can keep a close eye on you and any reactions from your magic."

"You want to keep me locked in that closet for two days?" Harry asked incredulously.

"You'll be unconscious for most of the first and you'll be free to roam the lab for all of the second, as long as you keep away from my more sensitive projects there shouldn't be much of a problem."

The thorough explanation seemed to have at least eased Peggy's worry a bit. "And you said you won't know how many times this will need to be repeated in order to be effective?"

"Correct," Howard confirmed. "We won't know until we drug him up and stress him out." He paused, waiting for the next onslaught of questions, but no more were forthcoming. "Should we begin now?"

"There isn't-"

" _Yes_ ," Harry cut off Peggy's protest before it could be fully formed and didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for it. He'd done his waiting, he was ready. "Drug me up and stress me out."

* * *

"None of this is going to be fun."

Harry peered over at Howard from his prone position on the frankly uncomfortable cot; the older man was kneeling near the foot of the cot, securing his legs almost painfully tight in the restraints.

"I figured as much, actually."

Howard scoffed at the sarcasm Harry hadn't quite managed to keep out of his voice. "What I meant is it's going to be _actively_ miserable, this could be considered psychological torture in some circles. _Most_ circles."

"I'm asking for it."

"And you're crazy for it." Howard laughed. "But I guess I can't blame you. I don't have much of a family, but if I did, I'd like to think I'd be just as willing to do anything it took to get back to them should we be separated."

"You would."

"Your confidence in me means a lot."

A sharp tug at the restraints tested and subsequently ensured that he wouldn't be going anywhere.

"How does it feel?"

Harry shook his head, restraints wound from the base of his throat to the top of his foot in restricting, suffocating waves. Not a single bit of him could so much as wiggle and it was _awful._ "I hate it."

Howard's laugh was a short, humorless bark. "We're off to a good start then. I'm going to strap you into the suppressor now."

There was small space on each of Harry's wrists that had been left unbound where deceptively thin cuffs that wired back to the machine against the wall were secured. A similar band was wrapped around his forehead and tightened enough where he knew he would have a hell of a headache later.

"Please try not to fry this," Howard only half-joked. "It'd be a hell of thing explaining to Phillips how we burned this place down."

"Considering the amount of volatile chemicals and equipment you keep down here, and your infamously reckless reputation, it really wouldn't be that hard. But I'll try my best not to anyway."

"I suppose that's the best I'm going to get. Are you ready to begin injecting?"

"That shouldn't even be a question. _Yes_."

"All right, this might pinch a bit."

A wicked long needle, one attached to a line that led to a suspended vial of clear fluid went, into his right arm without much fuss. A second syringe, just as intimidating, but this time full of the dark colored, liquid Harry remembered seeing that first day was the one Howard hesitated injecting him with.

"Final chance at getting out. Once this is in you, we can't stop."

"I'm not backing out."

Howard sighed. "I didn't actually think you would."

The injection was quick, nearly painless and followed by a near immediate rush of warmth flooding through his veins. There wasn't any other reaction aside from that, but Howard had said it would be a while before it to really begin to take effect.

"All right, you're all buckled in and the good stuff is working its magic now," Howard said with a nervous clap of his hands. "I hope you went to the bathroom, because you're going to be here a while."

Harry rolled his head on the cot just enough to pin the man with an unamused stare. "I should be fine. Now what happens?"

"Now I lock you in here nice and secure, and me and Peggy will begin psychoanalyzing the darkest moments of your past to really make sure you get the fullest, shittiest experience out of all of this."

"Can't wait."

Howard didn't leave immediately, to Harry's amusement he lingered for maybe just a moment too long, struck by a sudden hesitance. "If it gets to be too much say the word and we'll shut the whole thing down," he said, uncommonly sincere. "Don't go trying to play the hero. This isn't our only shot at this."

"I won't." The expression on Howard's face had Harry pressing against his restraints just enough to tap a reassuring finger against the back of the man's hand. "Promise."

"It wouldn't be any fun if you died before I could collect the proper amount of data."

The door creaked heavy on its hinges as it swung behind Howard, slamming shut with a finality that Harry would admit to no one was maybe a bit terrifying.

Even now, strapped down to the uncomfortable cot, actual drugs finding their way deeper into his system with each frantic pulse of his heart, and preparing to experience what was no doubt going to be the most unpleasant trip in his history, he wasn't rethinking his decisions to give this crazy idea a shot. But at least in the privacy of his own mind Harry could admit how mad it was, if it didn't kill him he was sure to feel like shit in the morning.

"Comfortable in there?" Peggy's voice, tinny with interference, crackled through a speaker mounted to the wall above his head.

"Better than a room at the Ritz."

"Glad you're liking the accommodations," was Howard's snarky reply. "We at Casa Stark strive to provide a quality experience. I'm afraid we don't have any drink specials on offer at the moment but the drug cocktail we've injected into your veins should more than make up for that, and we have a truly spectacular evening of relieving some of your most unpleasant memories planned for you."

Likely at Howard's command, the lights dimmed to barely anything; the brightest source now coming from the flickering red light from the suppressor. It didn't escape Harry's notice how deep the shadows suddenly seemed, or the jagged shapes they sent spilling along the floors and walls.

"Sounds like my kind of night. I was thinking the dark wizard who murdered my parents and spent near a decade trying to do me in might be a good source for traumatizing memories."

There was a beat of surprised silence, then Peggy's voice. "I'd be inclined to agree. That's not one you've told us."

"A bit too morbid for everyday conversation. But yeah, he was a manic."

"All right, let's hear it."

Harry allowed himself just a second of silence, bracing himself for a long and unpleasant recollection of his past. "He called himself Voldemort and he believed that only those of a certain birth should be allowed a place in the wizarding world, those whose parents had magic and their parents before them and so on. A lot of people, not just wizards and witches, died because of the belief. My parents were among those who did. I should have been too, but magic got involved, the kind I still don't fully understand and I survived and Voldemort was banished from his body for a bit. He took that as something of an insult and an open declaration of war on my part even though I was _one_ when this happened. When he got his body back, or _a_ body, he spent the next few years trying to kill me until I figured enough was enough and killed him myself.

"He's pretty much the reason I'm here, if it weren't for him I would never have got my hands on two of the three Hallows and so they never would have been united, not by me at least."

"Okay," Howard said, "let's go back to the part where you decided to kill the guy."

"I didn't exactly decide, there was a prophecy involved."

"That doesn't actually make this any easier to understand."

"An old professor of mine who was only a proper seer when it was most inconvenient foresaw a future where I would be equal to the most powerful dark lord in our history, in that future we were doomed to fight one another until one died at the hand of the other. That prophecy was the reason the dark lord went to my home that night, killed my parents, and attempted to kill me."

Peggy took a turn to speak into the intercom's microphone. "What was he like? Your dark lord?"

"Disgusting. Unnatural. He was hairless, pale as spoiled milk, his pupils were slits and he didn't have a nose, just gashes were his nostrils should be."

"That sounds like…"

"…a snake. Yeah."

"Did he frighten you?"

Harry laughed humorlessly and stopped short when the restraints around his chests made it hard to breathe. "He terrifies me."

"Why?"

He understood what Peggy was doing, why she was asking the questions that she was, Howard had only just explained every detail of this awful procedure. That didn't mean he liked it.

But he answered anyway, because he wanted this to work. He needed it to. "Aside from the obvious? He was so…intense and so _sure_ that he was right, that he would win. And he could have. I won because of luck only; he had decades of experience on me and it showed. He was more intelligent, more powerful, he should have decimated me."

"But he didn't," Peggy reminded. "You won."

"I did."

"So what else is there?"

"What?"

"You said he _terrifies_ you. As if he were still here, as if you're still at war with this creature."

Harry laughed again, this time from amazement at how accurate the statement was, and of course it would be Peggy to stumble upon one of his deepest rooted fears without even realizing what it was she was doing. "Because I am, I suppose. Or I will be. I went back on purpose, I told you that already. The plan was to go back to a time before the Hallows had united, but the only time like that that existed was also one before the dark lord had been defeated."

"I see…"

"But you don't," Harry pressed, and maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the restraints and the dark room and the flickering lights but he could feel something deeper and darker than simple agitation building in his gut, "because it was the Hallows that allowed me to kill him. I was able to do it because I was their master and when he tried to wield one against me it defied him and killed him and allowed me to win. Without them I'll have nothing but a broken wand and six years of learning to turn teapots into cozies to go against the most powerful and _evil_ man in our history."

"You're afraid you're going to die."

"I'm afraid my friends are going to die. That they'll see me fall-because there's nothing else I can do when I go against him- and know that they'll be next, that their parents and children and siblings will be next because I had failed."

His stomach churned in one wild, disgusting mesh of fear and anger and desperation at just the thought of having to go against Voldemort again. What was the point of preventing the union of the Hallows, of stopping the wizarding world's end before it had even begun, if it was at the cost of their freedom from Voldemort? Was being alive really worth being under his rule?

"And once they and everyone else who opposed him are dead, the rest will be forced to live in a world where those like my brilliant Hermione will be outlawed, locked away and tormented because they were born to what Voldemort deems the wrong families. Where men like Ron will be shunned and isolated and disowned because they won't allow themselves to be blinded by hatred and bigotry Where magic is controlled and prohibited to fit the narrow-minded world view of a handful of fascists."

As he spoke his fear into the world, each word painted the air around him bright as the red of Voldemort's eyes, dripping and curling like a noxious fog with every poisoned thought he finally put to words.

"They'll die if I don't go back and stop the Hallows from uniting. But they might be facing something just as terrible if I do."

"Damned if you do…" Was Howard's response.

Bitter cynicism bared Harry's teeth in a poor parody of a smile. "And damned if I don't."

"You were always such an awful cynic."

The hair-raising grind of metal on metal shrieked through the tiny room when Harry jolted suddenly in his bonds, stretching the reinforced straps to their limit.

"What was that?" Peggy's voice was back on the microphone, concern in every syllable. "Has something happened?"

"Something must have. You look awfully pale all of a sudden."

Harry's lips trembled around the words he struggled to form. "I-is this real?"

"Is what real?" Peggy snapped. "Harry, I need an answer. Are you all right?"

"Hermione is here."

And as he said it, a beatific smile spread across his friend's face and she perched herself on the small bit of unoccupied space of his cot. She was more shadow than substance in the low, pulsing light of the room. He could really only make her out by the untamable curls haloing her head and the sweet tenor of her voice, but if she turned her head in just the right direction and he squinted hard enough he might get lucky and catch just a glimpse of those intelligent, umber eyes.

"Hermione…Your friend from the future, Hermione?"

"You've told them about me?"

"Are you hallucinating already?" Surprise was heavy in Howard's voice, and for good reason. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes since the injection, nowhere near the hour they'd predicted it would take for the drug to really begin taking effect.

"You've told them all about us, haven't you? You've broken the statute, if the Ministry finds out they'll have your head."

Harry shook his head, ignoring Peggy and Howard's questions to focus fully on Hermione. "Different time, different rules."

"You don't honestly believe that, do you? They know, they've _always_ known; who are you are, where you, what you're doing. They've only been waiting, patiently biding their time until they can get you and as many others as possible in one, quick swoop."

"No."

"They'll come for you when your least prepared, wipe your existence from their memories and lock you away in the deepest, darkest pit they can find and you'll never get home and you'll never save us."

"It's not true," Harry spat. "I have time, I can fix this."

"We're going to die because of you, Harry. I already have." She leaned forward then, thick, dark curls mere hairsbreadths away from brushing his face, and in the scarce few moments were the room was illuminated by that single, blinking red light, he finally saw her clearly.

There was nowhere Harry could go, strapped down as securely as was, but there was no way he wasn't at least going to _try_. He cringed into the unyielding mattress of his cot, turned his head in the farthest direction from her, and screwed his eyes shut until he could see nothing of that fucking red light and the terrible image it illuminated.

She was dead, _long dead_. Rot had begun eating away her face, having already claimed an entire eyeball and much of the skin down the left side of her jaw, exposing the muscle and sinew and gleaming bone and molars that lay beneath. The only remaining eyeball was milky white and shot through with the red of burst blood vessels and what little flesh remained had already begun to bloat and peel away.

"You're not real."

"Who says I'm not?" Pale white hands, shriveling and clawed with decay, stroked along the divots of the mattress, still not touching him though, never touching him.

"Go away."

"No. You never want to hear what I have to say. But this is important." There was no warning before she was suddenly halfway across the room, moving swiftly and unnaturally in a back and forth pacing too dizzying to track for long. "You left me alone to face that mob, and I died because of it. Horribly. Miserably. _Alone_. And it was all for nothing, because you can't fix this. All this time you've spent here, every opportunity you've been presented and somehow you've managed to muck it up every single time. If it had been me, it would have been done already."

Her words burned; they set something that felt like fury but growled like magic alight in his chest.

"You told me to go. You said it had to be you who stayed behind to perform the ritual."

"You should have stayed anyway. You should have fought. You should have protected me. You should have _saved me_."

Harry shook his head, frantically denying the words he himself had thought when at his lowest. "It's not my fault."

"It _is_ your fault."

"Leave me alone."

"After everything we went through together, all the atrocities I endured for you, the things I sacrificed you repay me by leaving me to fend for myself?" Hermione wasn't angry when she spoke, and that perhaps made the whole thing worse, she only sounded defeated. "I thought I meant more to you."

"Please forgive me," he begged, desperate for this to end and willing to say and do whatever it took. "Please. _Please_."

"No."

The red light flashed a familiar green and she fell, a marionette violently released from her strings. And then Voldemort stepped over the corpse that seemed to grow more rotted with each passing second, a wide, cruel smile carving an unseemly gash across his face.

"Harry Potter." The simple greeting could barely be heard over the hissing of the dozens of snakes that bled from beneath his robes, they spread across the floor one giant, writhing carpet that whispered evil nothings in the sibilant language he'd been so eager to be rid of.

Harry groaned in horror, his hands twisted in their restrains, trying desperately and fruitlessly to claw their way up to his chest where an inexplicable pressure was caving it in. "No. No, go away."

"Failure in all that you will ever do. You are a disease. A plague. A curse. The world would have been much improved if you'd died that night on that cold doorstep."

" _Go away."_

The sea of snakes parted silently as the dark lord glided forward on bare feet to hover over his trapped form. "Because of your foolishness I've been given the chance I was denied. You have no hope of standing against me, so you will fall before me. On your bones and the bones of your loved ones I will build a world in my image, and your kind and the filth you associated with will be purged."

The snakes coiled around each other, forming twisted shapes and crippled forms that could just be distinguished as the broken bodies of his friends and family. All dead at Voldemort's feet.

Something in Harry _shattered_ , his scream was one torn from his chest and amplified by the unfiltered magic that had been building in his chest, waiting for this perfect moment to let itself and his fury known.

The world around him warped but Voldemort remained the solitary, steady figure. Laughing at his pain even as everything else stripped away. Then there was a concussive banging, the sudden gush of unnaturally thick air, then nothing.

* * *

He didn't wake easy. Five, ten, _twenty_ hours passed and Harry jerked to consciousness with a heaving gasp and a mouthful of bile. Peggy and Howard were on the other side of the room, crouched over something he couldn't yet see and so were luckily out of the splash zone.

They were at his side a moment later though, Peggy with a soothing hand between his shoulder blades and Howard with a rag at the ready and a sheepish smile.

"Too many drugs in your system," he said as the rag was tossed over the watery mess. "I knew they wouldn't sit well with your stomach, should have had a bucket at the ready."

"Mark that down for next time," Harry rasped around his sore throat.

"Any other symptoms we should take note of? Dizziness? Disorientation?"

"My head feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it." Harry tucked his head between his knees, struggling to form rational thought around the pounding in his head.

"Want something to take the edge off?"

He moaned in protest. " _Please_ , no more drugs."

Howard barked a quick laugh. "I meant something more along the lines of bourbon. But I feel that would receive about the same warm reception."

"You would be right."

"Aside from the headache. How do you feel?" Peggy asked. "How does your magic feel?"

Harry took a good long moment to seriously consider the answer, hesitantly focusing inward in search of his magic. It didn't take much to find it. The second he sought it out, it was there, itching beneath his skin like a rash he couldn't quite reach; he felt alight with energy, restless and unsettled, the same as he'd felt the day he'd seen the girl die and the reaper who took her soul. It was different, _more_ , and indisputable proof that it had worked.

"We had a feeling it did," Howard said when Harry relayed as much to them. "You had a pretty serious reaction in no time at all." He hurried across the room to collect what he and Peggy had been looking over when Harry had first woken, then quickly returned to his side, the strangely marked paper held loose in his hand. "I went ahead and did an EEG while you were out, just to make sure we hadn't rendered you braindead, and even unconscious and not actively casting your markers were off the charts. This one experimental procedure had an enormous impact on your magic."

Howard was near vibrating out of his shoes he was so excited, and Harry was growing to be near as bad. "So that means we can continue? We can actually do this?"

"Yes, not _now_ but soon. That half hour took a lot out of you, you've been out almost twenty-four hours and I still need to observe you for at least another twelve to make sure there aren't any surprise side effects. But we can continue. I really think this can work."

Harry slumped back onto the cot, heaving an enormous breath of relief. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_." Howard beamed down at him. "I've never worked on something so incredible, I don't think I ever will again."

"I wouldn't be so sure." A matching grin was quick to spread across Harry's face. "Don't forget the disintegration rays powered by an object of possible alien origins stored in the room over."

"Good point."

"If you're feeling up to it we'd like to get you up on your feet," Peggy cut in. "There's even food out in the main lab for you to give a try."

"The only time I'll allow it," Howard said, faux-sternly. "Try and keep it down this time around?"

"I can't make any promises."

Harry grunted softly as he swung his legs over the side of the cot, he allowed himself a moment to firmly ground his feet to the floor before pushing forward onto unsteady legs. Peggy and Howard were at his side in an instant, close enough to provide support should he need it, but allowing him just enough space to maneuver on his own.

It was dizzying the first few steps, but he shook off his vertigo quickly enough and managed to stagger out into the main lab without any assistance. A chair was waiting for him, already invitingly pulled out in front of a cleared off work station.

"Soup to start," Peggy said imperiously. She unscrewed a clunky, metal thermos and placed it in front of Harry. "If you're able to keep that down and in the mood for more after I might have a few biscuits I'd be willing to share."

"Cheers."

The soup was the bland kind of fare that spoke of how heavily rationed anything with any kind of flavor was, but it was warm and hearty and did wonders to fill the gnawing pit in his stomach so there wasn't much he could say in complaint. Especially when, after finishing off the entire thermos and waiting a good few minutes, it didn't make a second appearance and he was allowed one of the raspberry biscuits Peggy liked to take with her tea.

"How did the whole thing look from your end?" Harry asked as he steadily worked his way through his lunch.

Peggy hummed thoughtfully. "A bit disconcerting," she finally settled on. "It wasn't so awful when we were speaking with you, but when the hallucinations began and you grew upset it was difficult to watch. The reaction from your magic wasn't at all what we were expecting either."

"What did it do?"

"Nothing," Howard said, looking the slightest bit bemused. "We were expecting a big, destructive display from the things you've described, but all we saw was you shouting at an apparition and then you were screaming. When we gassed the room we didn't know your magic was having a reaction, we thought something had gone wrong. It was only when we did the EEG that we realized otherwise."

"Do you think it was because of the suppressor?"

"I can't say. Maybe? Or maybe whatever your magic was trying to do wasn't a physical attack. You've said that it's inflicted auditory and visual hallucinations on both you and another before, maybe it was trying something along those lines this time around too."

"We'll just have to be careful next time," Peggy said. "We know what it looks like and how quickly everything happens so we can be prepared. Are you still feeling all right?"

Harry shrugged. "A bit itchy and full of energy, but all right otherwise."

"You should be fine for me to step out for a bit then, yes? Rogers and his men are leaving this evening to bring down a HYDRA facility in the Tatra Mountains, I'd like to be there to see them off if I can."

"I promise I won't blow Howard up with my newly manifested powers," Harry said, maybe just a touch insincerely.

"And I promise not to goad him into blowing me up with his newly manifested powers," Howard added, no more believable than Harry.

Peggy rolled her eyes even as she battled a small snort of amusement. "If either of you winds up dead the other would do well to follow him, because I'll have no mercy on you."

"Noted."

She left with a short nod and the sharp click of heeled shoes on concrete, Howard was rounding on Harry with a grin full of mischief the moment she was gone. "Should we test to see how much more effective at making explosions the procedure has made you?"

"Yes, please."

* * *

Twelve hours and several demolished slabs of granite later, Harry had worn himself out near to nothing, but no surprise side effects had reared their ugly heads in that time and Howard eventually gave him a pass to head back home. He offered to call him a car, save him exerting himself any further, but he opted to walk instead. His legs still worked just fine and the boarding house the SSR had put him up in didn't take long to reach by foot.

That was a good decision, as it turned out. Death made an appearance without any sort of warning, as he often did, halfway through the walk and it would have been horribly awkward trying to carry a conversation with the entity visible only to his eyes without completely freaking out a driver.

"I take it you're here because of what we did." Death never wasted time on any kind of niceties, Harry figured he should get into the habit of doing the same.

"It's fascinating and very stupid."

Harry shrugged not even a little perturbed. "I had a feeling you wouldn't approve."

"I could care less what you do to your weak little body so long as my Heart remains unbroken."

"How poetic," Harry laughed, however Death wasn't yet done speaking.

"But if you damage it or yourself in this pointless crusade, the infinity gem may never be recovered."

"And that upsets you."

"Yes that upsets me," Death snarled. "Were we not both in agreement that the last thing we wanted was for Thanos to get his hands on the space gem?"

"Well, of course, but in my present, when I left, did Thanos have the space gem?"

Death took on an expression eerily similar to the scrunched nosed, pursed lip grimace Aunt Petunia seemed to always sport whenever Harry was near. "Not when you left. but there were whispers, he was making moves to begin collecting."

"But we'll still have time. I won't have forgotten anything once I'm back in my time, I can still help retrieve and hide it. I just need to make it back first."

"You intend to give up the Heart, and while I have no complaints about that, once you do there is nothing you can do to contain an _infinity gem_. You will be mortal, weak, powerless."

"I won't be completely powerless," Harry protested. "I'll still have my magic."

Death scoffed mockingly. "Your parlor tricks are nothing when compared to even one of the gems."

"A mortal has it now. A _magicless mortal._ The way I see it, I already have an advantage."

"You're a fool."

"Maybe." Harry's mouth ticked up in a small smile. "But I'm determined fool. And I know how to get things done."

The look Death pinned him with was surprisingly free of malice or disdain, but it sent a shiver down Harry's spine all the same. "One day, you'll find yourself facing odds not even you and all your dumb luck can overcome."

And wasn't that just an awful repetition of the very same thing his drug riddled mind had considered one of his most deeply rooted fears? But Harry only smiled wider in the face of Death and refused to be cowed.

"As long as that day is not today or the day after, I'll make do." He snapped the entity one last jaunty salute then marched his way home.

* * *

 **A/N: This is not at all the chapter I had intended to write. I wanted to just add a quick scene to the beginning of an already fully planned and plotted chapter and it just…snowballed. I'll just have to save the fun explosive death powers and Harry & Bucky bonding for next chapter.**

 **On an only somewhat related note, the next time you all hear from me I will have seen Infinity Wars and so will be a changed woman. Please come cry with me on Facebook and Tumblr.**


	11. Chapter 11

Those easy hours after the procedure, the ones spent causing reckless explosions for the fun of it and restocking Harry's energy with the biscuits Peggy left behind, made them complacent. Howard kept an eye on Harry in the days following of course; every hour on the dot he would ask for a status report from Harry, he'd measure the growth in his magic, any changes that might be marked even long after the drugs had worn off. And every hour on the dot he would declare Harry healthy, changing still but he and his magic were stable.

The problem was Howard was muggle and mortal. He was a genius, no denying that, but there were some things he didn't and couldn't understand about this power simply because he had no experience in it outside of the single test subject he had found in Harry. The magic they'd meddled with was quiet in the days following the procedure, complacent, and so it fooled them all into believing it was tame.

Until the moment it proved that it _wasn't._

It began with the return of Rogers and his team. They'd been in Slovakia, storming a HYDRA base in some mountain range Harry vaguely recalled Peggy naming when he was freshly through with the procedure. The mission had been a test to see how well the unit worked together and they proved without a shadow of a doubt that they worked _well_.

It hadn't been a very large base, housing a dozen agents at most, half of which had taken the route of cyanide capsules hidden in teeth before they could be apprehended, but the rest were taken into the team's custody and all of their work was rounded up and brought back to the SSR. A few more of the energy guns were brought in for Harry and Howard, a welcomed gift as Howard had broken down all of the others in his quest to understand what made them tick.

"The shields are just about done and ready to be handed off for field testing." Howard said even as he began unpacking the bag stuffed haphazardly with a whole array of HYDRA's energy weapons. "But it wouldn't hurt to give the ones we've got one more test here in a controlled environment."

Harry couldn't find any reason to object, there hadn't been much for him to do the past few days save for sit around and endure Howard's endless questions. But he'd stuck around, suffering his boredom in not so silence, so Howard could keep an eye on him.

"What do we have to work with?" Eagerly he bounced over to Howard's side to take in the assortment of weapons.

The pack must have belonged to one of the HYDRA agents as, along with the weapons stuffed into it, there were a few personal effects stored within it as well; a pair of spare socks, a compass, some laces, and other oddments to that effect.

"Doesn't look like much," Howard said. "The standard rifles for the most part, a few grenades, a normal knife." His hand found the bottom of the bag and he paused, Harry caught confusion and, oddly enough, recognition cross his features, but then he withdrew the only remaining item from the bag and he understood.

It was a wand.

A _real_ wand. Harry didn't even have to touch it to feel the innate magic radiating from its core.

"Is this what I think it is?"

Harry could only nod even as his mind scrambled to form a practical explanation for the wand's presence. It being a lucky find was the most obvious one, a souvenir picked from the corpse of one of HYDRA's many victims. And yet his mind kept falling back to a wilder, much less likely rationale for no other reason than it just _felt_ right: the pack from which the wand had come belonged to a wizard. A wizard was working with HYDRA.

"Where are the prisoners being kept?"

Howard startled at the sudden question, as lost in his thoughts as Harry had been until just a moment ago. "The interrogation rooms, Phillips wanted to ask them a few things before they were sent off to a camp. Do you think…"

"We need to find Peggy. Or Phillips. Or both."

They were together, the two agents, in Phillips' office no doubt going over the mission debrief and making arrangements for their prisoners.

Harry rapped sharply on the open door, then marched right in, Howard close behind and the pack containing the wand clutched tight in his fist. "Do we know who this belongs to?"

"Glad to see your picking up Stark's impressive manners," Phillips drawled sarcastically, not even bothering to look away from the report in his hand and to the bag in question.

Peggy was another matter though. Harry must have looked as off as he felt as a frown of concern was already beginning to wrinkle her forehead. "Has something happened?"

"Not yet. Do you know who this bag belonged to?"

His sharp tone finally drew Phillips' attention, but it was again Peggy who responded. "One of the HYDRA agents Captain Rogers took in I believe. I wasn't there to see though. Tell me what's wrong."

"We found this inside of it."

Peggy, and Phillips to a lesser degree, had seen his wand enough to recognize one on sight, even if the one he held aloft was noticeably darker and longer than the one he kept tucked up his shirtsleeve.

"Could it have been stolen?"

Harry shook his head at Peggy's question. "It was hidden in a false bottom of the bag, it belongs to him."

"Let me see."

He obligingly handed the bag over and watched as Peggy searched through each compartment and pouch, coming up empty in every one, just as he and Howard had.

"Captain Rogers would know who this belonged to," she finally concluded.

"Then have someone go and get him." Phillips said only to immediately call for the young woman working at the desk just outside of his office with orders to find Rogers and bring him to them immediately.

But the man had left already, along with his Sergeant and almost the rest of his team. A Gabe Jones was still in the facility though, resting in the infirmary with a strained ankle, but he was quick to leave his bed and the boredom of the medical wing when the urgency of the situation was relayed to him.

"Dugan grabbed it off the back of one of the agents we took in," he confirmed the moment he saw the bag. "Tall guy, real skinny with dark hair cropped short and a mole just beneath his left eye.

The one matching his description had been set up alone in the third of six interrogation rooms, he hadn't spoken a word since arriving, the same as all of his other colleagues.

"Let me talk to him," Harry all but demanded.

Phillips laughed right in his face. "And why would I do that?"

"Because he's one of mine. A _wizard_ working with _HYDRA_ , we have to understand why, if someone ordered him and others there or if he's working alone."

"I have _real_ agents for that. Men and women trained and cleared for interrogation. You are not."

"No SSR agents but the ones in this room have been cleared to know about the wizarding world."

Phillips raised a sardonic eyebrow. "It's a good thing Agent Carter has the proper training and clearance to carry out an interrogation."

"He won't tell her a thing," Harry said certainly.

"Why do think that?" Peggy finally spoke up.

"Because not everyone in my world is as forthcoming with our secrets as I am. He won't say a word about magic." Harry chanced a quick glance at the glass that allowed them a perfect view of the wizard but still kept them hidden from his sight. "And just looking at him I can tell that he's the sort who wouldn't speak with you even if he was allowed. Too much of the wizarding world is home to some very narrowminded men, nothing is more beneath those men than a muggle."

Peggy nodded, she knew of the war with Voldemort and the disdain he and those like him had for those without magic. "Let Harry talk to him," she told Phillips. "He's best equipped for this job."

"He's not qualified."

"He's most qualified out of all of us."

Phillips looked between Peggy and Harry and an unusually silent Howard, then snorted ruefully and waved his hand in clear permission. "I know when I'm beat. But if this goes bad the blame falls on you, Agent Carter."

"Understood."

"Finding out if he even is a wizard and what affiliations he has with any others is the most important thing to get out of him." Phillips was speaking directly to Harry now. "But if you could get any of HYDRA's plans out of him while you're doing it, that would be just fine."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Good. Now get in there."

The room was tiny, barely ten paces from end to end and only just large enough to fit two uncomfortable looking chairs and nothing else. The man who might be a wizard was in one of the two chairs, each wrist bound securely to the metal arms of the furniture. He kept his eyes cast down when Harry entered, a move that might be viewed as submissive by some but just looked bored to Harry.

The silence lingered while Harry took the time to get settled into his own seat (it was just as uncomfortable as it looked), and lingered for a while longer as surveyed his interrogee.

He wasn't all that fine looking of a fellow with his smooshed up nose and thin lips naturally curled in a scowl, the unnaturally gray pallor of his face and the crooked way he sat in his seat wasn't doing him many favors either. The man seemed dedicated in his cause to pretend Harry didn't exist, right up to the moment he pulled out the wand.

"This yours?"

Steel gray eyes flitted from the knobby length of the wand to Harry's impassive face once, then twice, before settling back onto his lap.

"Is that a no?" Harry tilted his head curiously. "It sounded like it might be a no. All right then…"

The wood of the wand made in ominous groan as Harry gently began to fold it into itself. The shoulders of the man across from him stiffened in a move that was only noticed because Harry had been looking for it. He ceased his attempts at breaking the wand in two the moment he saw it.

"You're a wizard." The prisoner's words were thick with an accent of Eastern Europe and spat with all of the reluctance of one who knew he'd been outsmarted.

Harry gave a noncommittal hum as he allowed the wand to fall safely back into his lap. "Why are you working with the muggles?"

"Why are you?"

"They're a means to an end," Harry shrugged. "I'm helping them so that they will help me."

The wand in his hand twisted between his fingers, there wasn't any intent to cast behind his actions but the wood still hummed happily in his grasp.

Wary gray eyes met unflustered green for the first time since the start of the conversation. "Who are you?"

Harry offered a bland smile. "Oh no," he said, "I've already answered one of your questions. It's only fair you answer one of mine. I'll even be kind and give you an easy one to start. What is your name?"

There was no answer from the man, he seemed to have clammed up without reason.

"Have you forgotten how to talk all of a sudden?" Harry goaded.

When that second question went unanswered, Harry reached across the small bit of space between them and placed his hand on one of the man's cuffed wrists.

"Please, brother," he said, layering as much sincerity into his words as he could manage, "none of us have want to hurt you, but your silence will not be stood for much longer. Can you give me your name at least? Just your name and I'll give you mine. A trade."

The man's eyes fixated to the point where Harry's skin met his own, the hairs on the back of that arm had stood on end.

"I am Adalgar."

"Adalgar." Harry carefully tested out the sound before offering another, more sincere smile. "A pleasure. I'm Harry. What did you want from the muggles?"

And once again there was silence.

"Adalgar," he repeated with a bit more steel in his tone. "What did you want from the muggles?"

In the few seconds Harry was waiting for an answer, his attention was redirected once again to the point of contact between him and Adalgar. He was struck with the sudden realization that this was the first physical contact he'd had with another magic user in almost a year, once the thought took hold he found himself hyperaware of the touch between them. If he sat still enough he could _feel_ the man's magic, a faint hum just beneath the surface of his skin. His own magic let out what almost felt like a contented purr at the contact.

As if acting on commands other than his own, Harry's hand wrapped firmly around Adalgar's wrist, seeking out every instance of magic that it could. But not much was to be found there so he sought it out, searched higher until just the tips of his fingers came to rest at the center of his chest, only millimeters to the right of his heart.

"What are you doing?"

"You haven't answered my question yet," Harry reprimanded. "We trade, remember?" There was a point just beneath his finger where magic or energy or _something_ was gathering, attracting much of Harry's focus as it did.

"The muggles, Adalgar," he prompted, when the silence dragged on for too long. "What do you want from them?"

Adalgar squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, exhaling shakily as he finally responded. "Recon. I was sent to find their energy source."

"The stone?"

"Yes."

"Who sent you?"

Adalgar shook his head. "We trade, remember?"

"I did say that, didn't I?" Harry crooked his finger and felt a corresponding tug from something _inside of Adalgar._

The other wizard hissed in discomfort, cringing back in his seat in an attempt to escape Harry's touch. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know."

He bent his finger again. Then he drew away, but he was caught on something, a curling strand of iridescent light that unraveled from Adalgar's chest the further away he pulled.

" _Stop_."

"Who are you working for?"

"Please, stop."

"I just need a name, Adalgar."

"He will kill me."

Harry's smile this time was a gentle thing that held just an edge of mockery. "No. He won't."

"Grindelwald."

Somewhere in the back of is mind, the name registered as one that meant only the worst of news for him. Harry had done so well avoiding Voldemort, the last thing he wanted to do was tangle with the dark lord of this era. But another part of him, the part entranced by the lustrous thread coiling from within Adalgar and around his finger didn't have the slightest care for the name or what trouble it could mean for him.

"What does he want the stone for?"

Instead of an answer this time, he received a broken sob.

"Adalgar? What does he intend to do with the stone once he has it?"

"Please, I do not know," Adalgar's wail was one full of pain, but from what Harry didn't know, he was barely touching him. "He wants to defeat the man…the professor."

"Dumbledore." A harsh tug and enough of that silvery thread unraveled to fill the palm of his hand. It was weightless, barely registering as anything in Harry's hand.

"Prosím, nič viac." Adalgar was trembling violently in his seat, tears streaked down his cheeks but they remained completely unnoticed by Harry. "Have mercy."

The door swung open and hit the wall with a concussive banging. Harry jolted in his seat, jerked suddenly from the trance he had fallen into, his gaze swung upward to meet Peggy's eyes, wide and maybe just a bit fearful.

"Harry?"

He blinked rapidly, then clarity came crashing down on him and he snatched his hand away, the strand of light curled its way back into Adalgar who fell silent the moment he was released. Harry fell from his chair and stumbled as far from the suddenly prone man as the tiny room would allow.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what I...I don't know that was."

"Is he dead?" Peggy's usually steel laced tone wavered just the slightest.

Harry shook his head and just barely refrained from turning his back on the whole, awful scene. He watched terrified as Peggy touched two fingers to the base of his throat and waited near half a minute before wilting in relief.

"He's alive. Only unconscious." She turned to Harry then, no judgment in her gaze and the fear gone now that he'd found control again, but there was still something deeply unsettling in the way she looked at him. " What happened?"

"I don't know."

"You were doing something."

"And I don't know what it was."

Harry's voice rose and broke with distress, he didn't miss the way Peggy took a half step away from him at the outburst.

"We need better than that." She moved forward, and this time there wasn't a moment of hesitation when she took hold of his hand. " _Focus._ "

Harry sucked in a breath that audibly trembled. "I just…I just need a moment. To collect myself."

A few wrong questions and he would be falling into a full blown, breakdown, and knowing what she did about the unusual and often violent ways his magic reacted to stress, Peggy wasn't at all inclined to let it get that far. "That's fine, darling. The conference room down the hall, go there, take as much time as you need. We'll get him sorted out in medical and then we'll take care of this, yes?"

"Yes." Harry tightened his grip on her hand for only half a moment, seeking out the comfort she was so readily offering. Then he stepped away and out of the room, Howard and Phillips were waiting just outside the door, but they said nothing to him and he didn't even look their way as he rushed to lock himself in the conference room.

Death had once told him that when he fell into his moods of overwhelming fear and anxiety while pondering the Heart or really anything else to do with it and the entity they once belonged to, it was like a beacon, a cry into the void for him. Well if that were true he must be screaming, shouting, _wailing_ for Death now. Only this time it was intentional.

He was still too shaken to be able to muster a smile when the entity arrived, but he felt a marked sense of relief all the same. Whatever had happened in that room was linked to the Heart, Death would have answers.

"Your new method is better than the sticks and the flowers at the least, but I would appreciate a less… _deafening_ call for my company the next time you might have need for me."

"Maybe you can teach me that trick." Harry tucked his hands in the crook beneath each arm, more in an attempt to hide the way they still shook than for the confident pose it might look to some. "But later. I need help."

"You _always_ do. You're an insufferable, helpless little quark."

"I think I almost killed someone."

That earned him a sarcastic little smirk. "And why would I, _Death_ , find any issue with that?"

"Because I didn't realize I was even doing it until it was almost too late. There was just this light and I felt so powerful but I had no control. It was like all that there was was the consuming need to have it, whatever it was."

"The light?"

"Yes. It was coming out of him, Adalgar." Harry rapped sharply on his own chest in a rough approximation where he had been connected to the other wizard. "Here."

"Oh, quark." Death laughed and it did nothing to comfort him. "You were reaping his soul."

" _What?_ " The word was barely a whisper, pushed with enormous effort past trembling lips.

"You can do all that I can. I reap souls, it's perhaps the thing I'm most well known for, and so you can too. How is he? The man whose soul you tried to take?"

"I don't know…he was unconscious when I left."

"Yes, well the process when done before their time is very painful. Like extracting one's organs through their nostrils with a rusted hook."

Harry stomach rolled, a quick hand clasped over his mouth saw him heaving violently but not expelling his lunch all over the floor.

"This is because of what we did," he whispered once the heaving had passed and he had some form of control again. "Isn't it?"

"I could only presume. You showed no propensity for the ability before whatever little experiment you conducted on yourself came to pass."

"This is what I was afraid of."

"Being granted the power of a primordial being?"

"Not having control," Harry snapped and felt bad for it almost immediately after, even if Death remained as unphased as ever. "I could have killed him."

"Lucky then, that you didn't."

"Your words of comfort are doing wonders for my stress levels, thanks."

"Anything for you, quark." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable and Harry couldn't help but laugh humorlessly at Death's ability to _just not care_ even when it felt like his world had, once again, been shifted on its axis.

He sank into the chair at the head of the table and folded his form in half until his forehead was resting against his knees. "I never wanted this."

"But it's yours anyway." The touch Death placed on the back of his neck was freezing and wholly unexpected. "You're fighting it. Stop. You don't want this power, this mantle, I understand, but it will not be ignored. If you do not use it and embrace it, it will find its own way."

"And if I hurt someone trying to wield this power?"

"Then comfort yourself with the knowledge that one lost life is nothing compared to the hundreds more that would be taken if you do not learn to _control yourself_."

And then he was gone. And Harry could do nothing but contemplate the harsh truth of Death's words.

Peggy returned sometime later- he'd stopped keeping track of how long he was in the room the moment Death disappeared- and Howard and Phillips were right behind her.

"Ready for your debrief, agent?"

"No." But he stepped to the side anyway and watched them file into the room and to their seats before reluctantly joining them at the table.

"So, explain to us what the hell happened in there." Harry could almost appreciate how little time Phillips wasted getting straight to the point, it would certainly make this entire, painful process go a little quicker.

"I lost control."

"No shit. How?"

Harry shifted restlessly in his seat, then glanced to first Peggy then Howard. "It's because of what we did."

Neither seemed surprised but Phillips was understandably lost. " _What_ did you do?"

"We've been helping him try to access more of his magic," Howard stepped in to explain for Harry. "Just as Erskine promised. We made a breakthrough only a few days ago and have been keeping an eye out for side effects since." He turned back to Harry. "This is one of them?"

He shook his head. "Not a side effect. This is it working. I wasn't prepared for the reaction my magic would have when it came in contact with another's, it was overwhelming and I lost control."

"What were you doing to him though? He was screaming, but you were barely even touching him."

Harry hesitated, all the time he'd had in this room alone and he hadn't considered a proper cover story. He couldn't tell them he'd been reaping the man's soul, but he had to tell them _something_. "It's um…it's not something I even understand. My magic felt threatened by his so it tried to neutralize the threat. Snuff it out. I didn't even realize it was happening until Peggy stepped in."

Phillips didn't seem at all enthused by the response, and if he was being honest Harry couldn't really blame him. He wouldn't be at all happy to hear he had a nineteen year old wizard with only the most tenuous control of his power taking refuge in his agency either. "Is this something we should expect from you often?"

"No," Harry said immediately. "None of you have any power my magic might view as a threat, and I know what happened now, I won't be caught off guard again."

"And we'll be keeping a closer eye on him as well," Peggy input.

Phillips still didn't seem entirely pleased, but his scowl of disapproval had passed at the very least. "It'd be in your best interest that you do. Another incident like this and we might have the wrong people trying to look into our affairs." Once he received confirmation from the other three in the room, he gave a satisfied nod and leaned back in seat, relaxing infinitesimally before moving onto the next order of business. "It sounded like he was giving you names before it went tits up. What were you able to gather from what he told you?"

"Well he's definitely a wizard," Harry sighed. "And he's not working alone. He's answering to a man named Grindelwald, he's a dark wizard. He wants the artifact, the energy source of all those HYDRA weapons. It's powerful and it's magic in its own form, I could see the appeal of possessing it, especially for a man like Grindelwald."

"What would he do with it if he had it?"

"That's harder to say. He'd wreak havoc on the wizarding world, that much is certain, but anything outside of that…"

Phillips leaned forward in his seat, his entire attention focused on Harry. "Is he a danger to us?"

"Him particularly? No. But wizards in general..." Harry hesitated. "Where there's one there's more. You won't find them fighting on the frontlines, they'll be in the HYDRA bases trying to track down the energy source."

"So it's Rogers and his men who might find themselves in danger of them," Peggy surmised.

Harry nodded. "They're the ones most likely to run into them. When confronted the wizards might run, but if they deem them enough of a threat, some will try to fight."

"With magic, you mean?" Phillips sighed.

"Yes."

"Is there any way they could defend themselves against it?" Howard asked.

"The shields will be of some use. We've tested my magic against them, we know they can deflect certain curses."

"But not all."

"And they'd be going in blind," Peggy added. "They don't know what to look out for. What they're defending themselves from."

Harry could hear the request she was avoiding putting into words. "You think I should tell them?"

"I think it might be the difference between life and death for them."

And maybe that was true, but a selfish part of him didn't care. He wasn't here to save lives, Rogers and his men would be going up against Grindelwald's spies even if he weren't in this time and they surely didn't have a wizard to tell them what to look out for then. His focus should be getting home and not mucking up the timeline anymore than he might already have.

But he was Harry fucking Potter and he had _morals_ , he couldn't let these men die if he had the means to prevent it.

"If it's any comfort, they already have some experience in the arcane," Peggy said as if she could scent his wavering resolve. "We've given them a full debrief on the possible origin of the artifact that's powering HYDRA's weapons. They know the consequences of speaking any of the SSR's secrets."

"And you can have them take the same vows we did," Howard added. "Sign in their blood and everything."

"I'm sure that would go over about as well as it did with you lot," Harry snorted.

"We signed them didn't we?"

They had.

"When?"

"As soon as we can get them back in the building," Phillips said. "Tomorrow? 0600."

"0800," Harry countered. "It's been a long day."

* * *

Harry knew only two of Rogers' men; Barnes who he was at least somewhat familiar with and Gabe Jones, the soldier who had identified Adalgar as the pack's owner the day before. The rest were strangers to him and while they all, at first glance, seemed nice enough they wouldn't exactly have been the sort of people he'd have felt comfortable sharing this secret with if it had been any other scenario.

They were already assembled in the same conference room he'd held the debrief in the previous night, wide awake despite how early it still felt for Harry and curious about the purpose of the meeting. This probably wasn't the usual place they gathered to be briefed for missions, deep in the bowels of the facility, away from curious agents and listening ears.

All eyes fell on Harry the moment he entered the room, the last to arrive, and while the members of the team he hadn't yet become acquainted with appeared confused by his presence, Rogers and Barnes smiled and rose to greet him.

"Agent Potter," Rogers' enormous hand engulfed Harry's own when he reached out to shake it. "Curious to see you here."

"Yeah," Harry winced, "it's sort of my fault you all are here to begin with."

"We weren't really told what to expect from this meeting," Barnes hand was just as large but a touch less formal when he added a quick pat to Harry's shoulder. "Want to fill us in?"

"Or you could wait long enough to be seated, Seargent Barnes," Peggy cut in. "After which we could begin debriefing you all and you'll know exactly what you've been called for." She was smiling as she spoke though, taking away any bite the reprimand might carry.

"Good morning, Peg."

Her smile widened and she turned her focus on Harry, a soft hand reached out to smooth over his cheek before resting just beneath his chin to tilt his head up enough for them to make eye contact. "Good morning, darling. How did you sleep?"

"Like shit."

"So crass," Peggy laughed, not the slightest bit perturbed.

"Sorry," Harry murmured. "Had a lot on my mind."

"Well let's get this over with quickly then so we can't get you some more rest. No lab today, straight home after this."

"Oh come on, Peggy!" Howard complained from his seat at the table. "You can't keep stealing my assistant."

"I'm not stealing him. I'm giving him a day off, a much-needed day off. Now come on, sit so we can start."

He was guided to the seat opposite the only exit to the room, bracketed by Peggy on one side and Rogers and Barnes on the other. Phillips was in the same seat he'd claimed the day before, at the head of the table and needed only a quick clear of his throat to silence the room. But before he could even speak, Peggy was interjecting.

"Introductions first." When it seemed like Phillips might protest, she added, "He needs to know who he's being expected to trust."

"Go on then," the Colonel grunted and Harry had to hide his smile at the fact that even Phillips caved so easily to Peggy's whim.

"Gentlemen," she said, addressing the room at large, "we're being joined today by Agent Harry Potter, he works with Stark developing the weapons and defenses you use to fight HYDRA. Harry, meet our anti-HYDRA combat unit; you're already familiar with Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, and you briefly met Gabe Jones yesterday evening. Across from you is Timothy Dugan."

The burly ginger being introduced tipped his hat, a bowler hat of all things, in greeting. "Only Agent Carter knows me by Timothy, most call me Dum Dum."

"Dum Dum is a child's name," Peggy snorted. "Beside him you'll find Jim Morita, to his left is James Falsworth, and across from Sergeant Barnes is Jacques Dernier."

"Pleasure," Harry smiled awkwardly and dipped his head in a nod.

"Agent Potter is here to brief you on a a worrying addition we've recently discovered to HYDRA's ranks, a sort of people you've not ever encountered before. They work very closely with HYDRA and so we think it safe to assume your unit is most at risk of encountering them during operations. If you're not equipped with the proper knowledge in who they are and how best to defend yourselves against them then those encounters could very well lead to your deaths."

"Okay," Barnes leaned forward in his seat, "I'm interested."

"I'm sure it goes without saying that everything that is about to be disclosed to you is highly classified. If we have any reason to believe you have spoken of this with anyone not in this room, you will be court martialed and prosecuted to the fullest extent."

It had been Harry's decision to forgoe the vows; not because he had an overwhelming trust in Rogers and his men (even if he'd at least come to accept the super soldier wasn't _completely_ awful), but rather because he trusted Peggy and, to an extent Phillips, and their ability to ensure these men's silence without him having to put in the work of crafting seven different vows and taking the time to convince each man to actually break skin and sign with their blood.

The combat unit were soldiers first and foremost, not spies or politicians, they knew how to take their orders and keep their silence. So he would tell them and not worry about this coming back to bite him in the arse.

And as if he could hear Harry's unspoken resolve and wished to further prove he was making the right choice, Rogers spoke up. "You know we won't say a word, we understand the importance of discretion."

Peggy nodded in thanks. "You've proven that you do. But assurances needed to be made all the same."

"Consider them made."

"It's time then, I suppose, to begin. Harry?"

The Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who Lied. The Man Who Conquered. Harry was used to being thrust in the spotlight, the unwilling center of attention, but it was still never easy. Especially when the eyes on him were so few and so personal. But the sooner he started the sooner it would be over, so he breathed out heavy and spoke.

* * *

They didn't doubt his story _once_. Even before the demonstrations and the endless questions, when Harry was only telling them of the sub-species of humans who could defy laws of physics and bend reality to their will, the group of soldiers showed no sign of disbelief.

There was confusion. As to the wizarding world felt the need to hide so many for so long.

There was wonder. Barnes had been _thrilled_ when Harry apparated him across the room and even more impressed when he vanished his vomit.

There was even a bit of exasperation. Because _of course_ HYDRA would find a way to get their hands on a few of these wizards.

But there was no doubt. No accusations of tricks or lies. Not even Erskine had been so quick to believe him, and yet these men listened to what he had to say and _believed_ him. After so many times being called a liar, it was a nice feeling to be so easily trusted.

"What's your favorite bit of magic?" It was Barnes who asked, he above all the others seemed most taken with the entire idea of magic and the little of the wizarding world Harry had explained.

"My favorite bit?" Harry, who had noticeably relaxed the more he spoke, took a second to ponder the question. "I think the Patronus would have to be it. It's really meant to be a defensive spell but it's got a few other uses and mine is a bit…sentimental."

"What does it do?"

Figuring it would be easier to show rather than tell, Harry maneuvered his wand in the series of flicks and twists as he spoke the incantation; the stag that burst into the room drew gasps of delight from even the hard to impress Morita, who went so far as to reach out and touch the specter.

"I can feel it," he said, hand running through the silver mist, "but it's not actually here."

"A Patronus isn't fully tangible," Harry explained. "Only dementors, the dark creatures they're meant to be defending the caster against, are physically affected by a Patronus."

"Dementor?"

"Wraith like creatures that feed off your souls and leech all happiness from a room, literally. They're disgusting and terrible and I hope you never have to encounter them. If I recall correctly using dementors among his forces was never Grindelwald's thing." Only Voldemort's. "But if you do come across one, don't try to fight it, or shoot it, or blow it up, run."

Phillips finally took that as his cue to reenter the conversation, steering it back to its original point. "Agent Potter is capable of some incredible things, looked like something fresh out a fairy tale when he introduced me to it, but that's only because he's on our side. The wizards with HYDRA aren't going to show you pretty lights and neat tricks, they're going to be using their magic to kill you."

"We're telling you of all of this so that you can learn to defend yourself against it," Peggy added. "Some spells have only a physical effect on you, they might cut you up, knock you off your feet. Others can be deflected with the shields we've been working on to defend you against the worst of HYDRA's weapons. And others you simply have to avoid contact with altogether. We want to make sure you can tell the difference in a fight."

"How is that going to be done?" Rogers questioned.

Harry was the one to answer this time. "You're going to fight me."

"Fight you?"

"Yes, magic against whatever you have. You need to see it in action, being used against you for you to learn to defend against it."

Neither Peggy, Howard, or Phillips had been privy to this particular decision until just now, it was one Harry had made alone, after returning home the night previous to consider the days to come. Telling them which spells to look out for wouldn't be enough, showing the spells wouldn't be either, if these men were anything like him, which now that he met them he was sure they had at least a few similarities, they would learn best by actually being put in the situation and learning as they went. And if teaching them had the side effect of preparing him for his eventual fight with Voldemort, that was just an added benefit. Who cared if they were only muggles? One was a super soldier and the others members of an elite combat unit, he had to start somewhere.

Rogers seemed to find merit in the idea too. "How soon would you like to start?"

Harry glanced over to Peggy, then over to Phillips, both were good enough at their jobs to keep the surprise from their faces, while Howard was totally unconcerned. He probably assumed he'd been too deep in one of his projects to hear of the plan to use Harry as a sparring partner against Rogers and his men.

"We'll have to arrange a space out of the way of curious eyes for you to use," Peggy finally said. "There are a few places here in the lower levels I can think of, I'll take some time today to look each one over and get back to you with what I decide."

"We're going to hold off sending you boys after anymore HYDRA bases until we get you comfortable fighting against this kind of weapon," Phillips said. "We can't have any of you getting killed by a spell you didn't recognize when we've got the means to teach you right here. No one wants you out of commission for too long though, so believe we're going to make this process as quick as we possibly can."

"We appreciate it, sir," Rogers thanked with a crisp nod. "Is there anything else we need to know?"

"Not at the moment, no. If anything else comes up we'll inform you."

"And if you have any questions, feel free to ask any of us," Peggy tacked on.

There were no more questions from any of the men so Phillips allowed them to head out while Harry, Howard, Peggy, and Phillips remained behind. The moment the door clicked shut behind Jones, Peggy was rounding on Harry, a smile that only barely hid her exasperation already rounding her cheeks.

"So you're going to fight them now?"

Harry shrugged. "We need to get this done quickly if we want them back to busting HYDRA bases, this is how we do it."

"Are you sure you're up for it?"

She wasn't just asking after his stamina or even his magical endurance, they could all hear the hidden question, the unspoken reminder of yesterday's debacle. To Harry's credit he didn't get defensive, or even flinch away from the reminder, he stopped to consider the question with seriousness then nodded.

"Yes, this is different. I'm calling on the magic I've always had in a controlled, non-hostile environment. The Hallows should have no reason to react."

"Will you let any of us sit in during these sessions?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "As if I could keep any of you away."

"Of course you couldn't. It's good of you to acknowledge that." Peggy laughed. "But now I actually have to go and find that practice space. I expect your help with that."

"Just let me know when."

"Now, if you have nothing else planned."

Howard heaved a sigh, finally breaking his uncharacteristic silence. "Just the other an hour ago she claimed she wasn't stealing you. This looks like theft to me."

"It's only for a few hours and then you can have him back _only if_ he's feeling well enough to do so. If he even looks too pale for my comfort we're going back to my original suggestion of taking the day off. Whatever you boys get into down there will have to wait."

"Uh, that would be pioneer advancements in modern technology."

"I'm sure that's what you would have us believe. If that's all, Colonel, we'll take our leave now."

Phillips nodded in short acknowledgment. "Go on. I expect an update by the end of the day."

"Of course." Both Howard and Phillips received a nod in parting, then she was gripping Harry's arm and leading him from the room. "Let's make this quick, I have real work to be doing."

* * *

She didn't need Harry, if they were being entirely honest, Peggy already knew exactly what she wanted and where to find it. He was just being brought along for the company. And to annoy Howard.

There were three potential rooms Peggy had in mind to utilize for the practice room, they only visited one before she decided she liked it best. After came filling out the proper paperwork to stake their official claim on the room and a visit to Phillips for an update and that was all. It barely took two hours and Harry was left with still way too much of his day ahead of him.

"Maybe figure out how you plan to go against Rogers and his men without killing them or yourself," Peggy suggested.

"No one is going to die," Harry huffed. "I have a few basic spells to put them up against that can give the same effect as the nastier ones just fine."

"Then I'm sure Howard would love your company."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

Peggy smiled sweetly. "Yes. But for your own good. I have an afternoon full of strategy meetings and paperwork, unless you want to sit in on either you should probably find something to do."

He didn't want to sit in on either. But neither did he want to lurk around in the lab with nothing to do. But then he remembered the medical wing one floor up and someone he needed to visit.

Adalgar was a prisoner, a dangerous one with magic, but the security surrounding the private room he'd been put in amounted to a single lock on the door to which only one member of the medical staff had a key to. Harry would have been outraged by the lack of caution, but then he actually laid eyes on the man.

"He's unresponsive, has been since he was brought in." The nurse heading his care was immediately forthcoming with any information Harry requested when she was told he'd been present during the event that had put him in this state. "It's still too soon to tell if he'll come out of it or not, it just depends on the level of trauma."

Having one's soul improperly extracted before its time by an untrained protégé of Death had to be pretty up there on the trauma scale.

"Is there anything physically wrong with him?"

"He's running cooler than normal and he gets bad sleep terrors every few hours. But he's healthy otherwise. Whatever's wrong with him, it's in his head."

"Yeah, but that can be just as dangerous as a bullet in the gut. More painful too."

"Maybe." The nurse didn't sound entirely convinced, but the people of this era hadn't ever been known for their progressive thinking regarding mental health. "But I've got to go on and make my rounds, will you be all right with him in here?"

"He's not any danger to me." It was the other way around really.

"I'll be back around in a half hour or so, if you leave before then make sure to lock the door behind you."

Harry didn't respond outside of a curt nod and she didn't seem to want much more than that. He watched her leave, attention already moving on to the next patient in her care, and found himself wondering over how little care seemed to be going into keeping Adalgar secured. No member of the SSR was lazy and he'd learned all too quickly that every agent and member, no matter their assigned position, was incredibly competent in all that they did. So the lax security wasn't borne from laziness or an improper understanding of the threat Adalgar could pose when awake, there was something else, something more, and the only thing he could think of was they didn't believe he would be waking.

But why would they jump to that conclusion? How had they come to it so quickly? He'd been there not even a full twenty four hours, and yes all of it had been spent unconscious but a long rest after a traumatic experience wasn't unheard of. Was it?

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, hoping somewhere in his hindbrain that if he was rough enough he might scrub the thought, and the unpleasant turn it had the potential of taking, from his head altogether.

He was just guessing anyway. He could be completely wrong, the security could be airtight and he and his untrained eye just couldn't tell. Adalgar could already be on the mend and the SSR was just giving him a nice bed in the infirmary to recover in peace.

But a part of him, a part he needed to learn to stop ignoring, wasn't feeling at all optimistic.

Merlin, he needed to sit. But there were no chairs in the room, just the small cot and its unresponsive occupant. It was low to the ground though so Harry just folded his legs beneath himself and settled on the floor just beside the cot.

The position put him just about level with Adalgar, close enough where every one of his features could be picked out in clear detail. He looked well enough, maybe a bit pale and he'd been thin even before having his soul halfway ripped out, the rings of purple bruising each eye was new but everything else looked normal, just as the nurse had said it was.

But Harry was plenty experienced with seeing men reduced to drooling vegetables when subjected to too much pain, he'd been privy to some of Voldemort's darkest moments for the better part of three years after all. And what he had done to Adalgar was beyond the Cruciatus; _like having one's organs extracted through their nostrils with a rusted hook_ , is what Death had likened it to. It was no wonder his mind had broken.

The thought sent a wave of conflicting emotions rushing through him. Torture, accidental or not, wasn't his thing and would never be his thing, just the thought of inflicting pain to that degree on another person made his stomach turn. But…

"But you work for Grindelwald."

He almost didn't realize he'd spoken, he definitely hadn't meant to, but it was almost a relief to do so. He had a thought that was weighing heavy and it might only be relieved by speaking it aloud. So he did.

"He's not as bad as Voldemort was or will be, I don't think. But he's still killed, he's still tortured and terrorized and his followers are no better." He paused, waiting for a reaction or a response or _something_ that never came. "You chose the wrong side and now you're suffering for it. I guess some would call that karma, justice, and maybe it is. I just wish it hadn't had to be dealt by my hand. I'm just…what I'm trying to say is I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done this to anyone, not to the man who spent _years_ torturing me, and especially not to a stranger. No matter what he may have done in his past."

The nail of his ring finger scratched insistently and almost unconsciously at the inside of his thumb until the skin felt raw and burned red with pain. He forced himself to focus on that, that point of discomfort rather than the awful feeling of _violation_.

He felt guilty, of course he did, but that was so easily overshadowed by the reminder that in that moment when he was reaping Adalgar's soul Harry had had no control. His consciousness had been booted to the backseat and his magic, the _Heart's_ magic, had taken the reins. It had been like the Imperius curse even while it hadn't: nothing had been forced, he'd wanted to do it. The need to find that spark within Adalgar and hold it in his hands had been consuming, there had been no thought outside of that single one. But where usually that thrall came from an opponent's curse, this came from within Harry, from the power he'd only just been helping to cultivate. And because of that there was no escaping it, he couldn't shake it off the way he might sometimes be able to with the Imperius. His body and his magic had no way to defend themselves against something they thought to be one of their own.

That didn't mean he was going to stop. Not even remotely. He was going to go back to Howard, allow himself to be strapped to that table again and injected with all manner of drugs until the terrors in his mind became indistinguishable from the terrors of the real world and his magic flared and attacked and _expanded_. Because he was too close now, the end was in sight and he would be damned if something like a little fear was going to stop him from getting back. And maybe people would get hurt, like Adalgar or maybe even worse, but that was a small price to pay. The entire wizarding world was at risk, the were thousands of witches and wizard who didn't even know they were relying on him to get this done. A few lives in exchange was negligible.

There had to be sacrifice if his world was going to survive. People were going to die; good people, innocent people, but not _all_ of his people. And that would be worth it.

But then he looked up at Adalgar, pale and haunted even in sleep. Broken, potentially irreparably, because of what he had done, and that resolve broke.

He was off the floor before he realized he was moving, crossing the room and yanking open the door too quickly for there to be any real thought behind his movement. When he left he couldn't remember if he'd locked up behind himself, but if he hadn't who cared? Adalgar was going nowhere.

Something was burning in his throat, not nausea or tears or a scream ready to tear its way free, maybe shame? Or disgust? Or maybe it was all of that combined. Whatever it was it hurt bad as a collapsed lung and made him feel out of control. It made his breath come out short and sharp in a way that wasn't helping him feel any more composed and was drawing the eyes of the nurses and doctors already there. He left before they could stop him, ask him questions that meant well but would only make things worse.

It didn't matter that he didn't know where he was going or where he wanted to be, or that his world had narrowed to one blurred out tunnel that made navigating difficult, or that if he didn't take a full breath soon he might drop right there in the middle of the hall. It didn't matter because five, ten, fifteen paces out of the infirmary his face met an immovable object that really just turned out to be one Sergeant James Barnes' chest.

For a moment what Harry now realized was the panic attack he'd been all too quickly spiraling into stopped in its tracks as he gawked at Barnes and Barnes gawked back at him. But then the moment was over and he went back to heaving for breath that wouldn't come, then Barnes had him by the arms and was dragging, dragging until they burst through the door of the washroom and he was collapsing forward onto the tile.

A hand fell onto the back of his head, the other wrapped around his wrist and maneuvered his whole arm until his hand was pressed into the center of the chest his face had only a minute or two ago been getting very well acquainted with.

"Hey, c'mon kid, breathe for me. You're okay, just breathe with me."

Harry felt the low rumble of Barnes' words beneath the palm of his hand more than he heard it. But those first few words and the soothing lilt to each of them was just enough to draw him out of his head to listen.

"Match my breathing."

A warm hand settled over the one Harry still had pressed to Barnes' chest, pushing it close enough where he could feel each rise and fall of his breath and track the steady pulse of his heartbeat. He kept his eyes closed tight, forcing himself to focus on that alone as he struggled to do as instructed and match the steady inhale and exhale.

"Good job," Barnes murmured. "Just like that. Can you do it again?"

It was audibly shaky the next breath he drew in, but it was still large enough to inflate his lungs and chase away the lightheadedness that had been beginning to take over.

"There you go. Try for one more."

He took in each word of praise greedily and followed every gentle instruction to just keep breathing until the world no longer felt as if it were closing in on him and his lungs had stopped rebelling against his body. But the worst had not yet passed. Harry took in his first full breath, something shuddered down his spine and he crumpled. His forehead hit his knees and he screwed his eyes shut even tighter to try and hold back his stinging tears even while he gasped out a painful sob.

Barnes didn't move away or even seem surprised by the burst of emotion, he only shifted his grip from Harry's head and wrist to cradle both of his shoulders; the contact should be terrifying considering what he'd done to Adalgar just the day before through touch alone, but he only felt warm and _grounded_.

"I'm sorry." Harry choked the words out of his aching throat with an enormous effort. "I'm sorry."

"Hey stop that," Barnes chided. "There's no reason to be sorry, I ain't judging. Just keep breathing.  
"Okay."

And for a long moment Harry focused on doing just that until the heavy knot that had been constricting his chest and turning every other word into a choked off sob had dissipated for the most part. By then Barnes had made himself comfortable on the floor right across from him and seemed to be itching with a question he wasn't able to hold in for long.

"This wasn't us, was it?"

Harry finally allowed his eyes to blink open as he swung a confused frown up at Barnes. "What?"

"You didn't look much like you wanted to tell us all about your…you know. Did it upset you, having to do that?"

" _No_. No, I wanted to tell you. If it meant keeping you all safe, I wanted to do it. This," he gestured at himself and the sorry picture he must make, "was something different."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

And the crazy thing was, Harry _did_. Unburdening himself to Peggy and Howard each time that he had was always a cathartic experience even if it made his hair stand on end the entire time he did it. It was nice not having to hold onto a secret any longer, and it was a feeling he was in sore need of at the moment. But how could he say even half of what he wanted to without sounding completely mad?

"I'm afraid." Is what he finally settled on.

Barnes cocked his head curiously. "Of what?"

"Me." Harry tapped at the center of his chest in an indication of his magic. "This. What it can do with or without my say because it's not just mine anymore. It's been altered without my consent, made into something I didn't want, something I can't control. But I need this power if I ever want to see my family again, if I want them to be safe then I need more of it even while I'm terrified of what will happen when I actually get it."

One long second dragged on in silence and Harry worried for a moment that he hadn't chosen his words quite as sanely as he'd hoped. But then:

"I kind of know exactly what that's like."

Harry squinted at the man in front of him, surprised and confused at the same time. "What?"

Barnes heaved a troubled sigh as he dragged his hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was pitched so low Harry, who was sitting mere inches away from him, almost had trouble hearing.

"In Azzano HYDRA would take guys to their labs, strap 'em to tables, and pump 'em full of some drug they were trying to make right. They took me back there one day, strapped me up and pumped me full and I was sure I was gonna die like all the others. Only I didn't, because of Steve; he got me off that table and whatever they did to me failed. Or I thought it did. Now I ain't so sure."

Barnes' face was guarded, maybe even a little afraid, but he spoke with an open honesty Harry couldn't bring himself to doubt.

"No one knows. What they did, that I remember, that it's working."

"What did they do?" Harry whispered.

"They made me like Steve. Only difference is he got the way he is in minutes, mine is taking weeks."

Harry felt something in the bottom of his stomach drop, whether it was fear or awe he wasn't entirely certain. "They perfected the serum?"

"Perfected might not be the right thing to call it," Barnes said with a shake of his head. "They did _something_ right, but I'm not sure they even knew. They wouldn't have been so quick to let me get away if they did.

"Since then I can see and hear and smell and shoot and fight better than before. Everything Steve says he can do my body is trying to mimic, only slower. And it's just like you said, having what you are changed and twisted into something you never asked for is fucking terrifying and…violating. But what's even worse? Needing what those bastards did to me. Because with it I know I can keep Steve safe long enough for him to win this war."

Harry's brain struggled to wrap itself around the bomb shell that had been dropped on him. HYDRA had developed their own version of a working serum and it was enhancing Barnes even as they spoke. How had they managed it without magic? And in the seedy, underground lab Harry had heard described to him too many times. It had taken Erskine years and outside intervention to get what he needed and they'd managed with less resources and even less backing than the SSR.

If anyone else were to find out...

Harry forced himself to abandon that line of thinking. No one could or would, not from him at least. Barnes had told him this out of trust and with the desire to see him comforted, he wouldn't betray that.

"Thank you."

The smile that quirked the other man's lips was just a hint bashful as he brought his shoulders up in a shrug. "I think it helps having someone who knows what it feels like. Shared experiences and all that."

"It does," Harry agreed. "It really does. I won't tell anyone, if you want to keep it quiet for a while longer or _forever_ , they'll hear nothing from me."

Barnes' smile morphed into something more genuine and grateful. "Thanks, kid." He fell back onto his heels, rocking back just far enough to get a proper look at Harry's face. "How do you feel? Up for walking?"

"If I have to, yes," Harry said, taking note of the way his legs, still tucked up beneath him, no longer trembled.

"You should head home, then, take the day to get your head on straight. I'll make something up with Stark."

He really shouldn't, he had work to do. But it was barely past noon and Harry was exhausted, Howard would forgive him for giving himself the rest of the day off, especially considering how light their work load was at the moment.

"I can walk the way with you, if you need some help."

Harry smiled but shook his head anyway. "I should be able to make it fine on my own. But thank you." He gripped Barnes wrist for just a second and gave it a gentle squeeze, trying his best to convey every ounce of his sincerity through his gaze alone. "Really, t _hank you."_

"Hey," one broad hand gave his a gentle tap, "we take care of our own, that means you too. Now get on home, get some rest. I expect you to have some more color in your cheeks next I see you."

Harry laughed as he hauled himself to his feet with only a hint of uncertainty. "I don't think there's ever been a spot of color in my cheeks, no reason to start now. But before you run me out…" Harry's feet stalled before they could cross the few steps that would lead him back out into the main hall, there had been a question lingering in the back of his mind since he'd first run into Barnes, now that he was clear headed and in control again it plucked at his curiosity even louder. "What were you doing headed into the infirmary?"

And suddenly Barnes looked _bashful_. "I, ah, was looking for you actually. Agent Carter mentioned you'd gone up this way, I just wanted to ask you a bit more about…well, you know. I grew up reading stories about this kind of thing, I guess I wanted to know how much of it was actually true."

Harry couldn't stop the smile that inched across his face; it got tedious telling the same unhappy stories of his past, he didn't think anyone had even once asked him to speak of the wonders of his world rather than all of its horrors. "Most of it is, actually," he confessed. "I can tell you all about it, if you'd like."

Barnes grinned, delighted and not even embarrassed to show it. "Oh I would, _tomorrow._ "

He laughed and nodded and easily agreed. "Of course. Tomorrow."

* * *

"Do you not wonder what made you all that you are? What gave you this power? This right to wield as you do."

Twelve wizards and witches, representatives of twelve of the many ministries of the European continent, stood in silence; they waited impatiently but wisely for the answer they knew would come with or without their prompting. Eight months had been spent working with this man, this muggle who had sworn to them salvation, they knew better than anyone how much he liked to talk.

And true to form he did, he talked, showing no interest in any response other than his own. "I did. Before I knew even what you were I wondered, and when I finally got the chance to understand, when your wards fell and your people, broken and beaten, finally revealed themselves to my curiosities I wondered more. It didn't take much work once the first of yours surrendered to my study for me to find what I wanted."

The baron named Strucker led them through a labyrinth of tight white corridors; the halls of his home and his workplace, where the magics and miracles he'd promised to provide were being performed even as he spoke. They'd come to collect on his promises, see the progress he'd made in all the time he'd been given, and he was only too happy to show them. Only after a bit of monologuing however.

"I've met others like you, not identical but similar. They considered themselves other than human, unique from the homo sapiens from which they descended, all because they could do what you could; bend matter, harness energy, rewrite the rules of the universe. They were lesser in some ways, only able do one rather than the multitude you're capable of. But the one that they could was with a force that outstripped the tricks you cast."

"I studied you both and found what was needed to make this possible. You two share a common history, descended from the same few altered and enhanced by a race not seen on this planet in centuries. They wanted to make your ancestors more than human, soldiers for a war they couldn't win alone, they thought they had failed and left them to die. But they didn't fail and their subjects didn't die, they evolved.

"Some remained with a single devastating ability that needed to be triggered through certain circumstances. And some were born with a latent capability of manipulating them _all_ on a smaller scale. As they evolved they grew apart, considered themselves separate from the other; one called themselves wizards, the other inhuman. But they both thought it wise to isolate themselves from those different, lesser, than them, tucked away in their own little worlds safe in their anonymity. Until now."

"As fascinating as this," a representative no longer able to hold out as patiently as his colleagues finally spoke up, "we did come here for a history lesson."

"No," Strucker agreed, "but if you want to understand what is being done here, you need to know."

At last they came to something other than the twisting, seemingly endless corridor; a room, wide and tall equipped with technologies none of the gathered wizards, even the more progressive among them, had any hope of recognizing.

"I mentioned that your inhuman cousins needed to be triggered through certain circumstances to obtain their abilities, they need a very specific catalyst." The baron led them further into the room, to the epicenter of the controlled chaos. "While those of your race are born able to cast, no trigger necessary. However, the catalyst that unlocks the abilities of the inhuman kind does have a rather interesting effect on your own as well."

He took a moment to allow the assembled witches and wizards to take in the sight of the strange devices that would change their world. The best way to describe them would be with a word like _coffins,_ completely transparent glass in the front, metal across their backs, upright _coffins_. They were identical in make and height (standing several heads taller than the tallest in the room) and connected across the less than foot of space between them by a similarly transparent piping system that would, when opened, circulate the breathing air in both capsules with little effort.

The only visible difference in the two devices was a compartment at the base of the first capsule, empty for the moment but reserved for something that would no doubt be integral to the overall process of…whatever Strucker was aiming to do.

It was an impressive sight in theory, but one none of the members of the wizarding council truly understood.

"What exactly are we looking at here?"

The smile Strucker granted his nonplussed guests was something close to amused, as if he found their confusion endearing.

"These chambers are where the transformation from man to inhuman take place. In the traditional procedure only one is needed, one similar to this chamber here." He gestured to the capsule with the yet unexplained compartment at its base. "We've made a few modifications to suit our purposes but the core idea remains the same.

"We begin with the catalyst, a crystal if you would believe it. Unfortunately the kind needed to make this work aren't ones you could dig up in just any mine, the Terrigen crystal is very rare, very hard to find; fortunately I have access to resources not many do." Strucker's words, unremarkable as they might seem at first, were taken as the warning they were meant to be. Even if the wizards could find some way to replicate the setup he had, they would be unable to get any further than that without these rare crystals he spoke of, highlighting the undeniable if not slightly bitter truth; they _needed_ Strucker.

The man in question carried on without a hitch in his speech even as a little smile tugged at his mouth. "When exposed to very specific conditions the crystals produce a mist that triggers the evolution of the inhuman to their higher self, they are entombed within a cocoon like covering and their potential is unlocked. With wizards, there is a notable difference.

"Any of yours who have lost their magic to disease are given the ability back tenfold, but within a week they're dead, overwhelmed and burned out. At our request you provided us a dozen fully functioning wizards, eleven of those twelve died when exposed to the mist same as the others. One didn't."

Strucker inclined his head just so and two men were immediately dragged into the room, both heavily shackled and dressed in garb reminiscent of a prisoner, and shoved into a chamber each.

"You'll find him to be the one on your right."

The wizard in question appeared a mere shadow of the man he might have once been, inches away from collapse, or death as one of the aide's fit a mask over the lower half of his face before shutting him in.

"He's what I've heard you call a pureblood, it's because of that he survived. His family's history of magic dates back several centuries, their ties to their inhuman ancestry is stronger than any of the others I'd been given and so when he was exposed to the mist his reaction was much less fatal. We did as we always do, we studied him, experimented, and in doing so found a rather convenient solution."

The compartment at the base of the first chamber disengaged at Strucker's command, an aide sporting protective gear up to his elbows carried in a vessel that radiated neon light. The crystals. They fit perfectly into the space beneath the chamber and were locked within with no issue.

"The power of the crystal is too much for just any wizard, magic or no."

A dull hiss played as soundtrack to Strucker's explanation, the glass granting them sight of the crystals fogged with sudden humidity as temperature controlled rain filled the compartment.

"But our pureblood friend can take it within himself."

The mask attached to the strangely compliant wizard was attached by a thin tube to the compartment containing the crystals, where a thick, billowing mist began to curl from them. With every breath he dragged in, the mist crawled its way through the tube until it filled his mask and he was pulling it into his lungs with each inhale.

"But his magic sees it as the intrusion that it is and tries to fight it."

Within the capsule the wizard began to jerk, small uncontrollable spasms that sent arcs of raw magic dancing across his skin in violently hued sparks.

"This is usually the part where they die, too much power overloads the body and they just crumble. But whatever manipulations were done to his ancestors guard him from the same fate, and instead of killing him that influx of power is expelled."

The wizards tore the mask from his face as he heaved, choking on the viscous fog that poured from his mouth, thicker and darker than it had been when it went in.

"What is returned is different, tempered, attuned to a lesser wizard's physiology. They can intake it and what happens after is similar to the crystal's original purpose. Only bigger and _better._ "

When the heavy, storm colored fog completely filled the capsule, the piping system connecting the two tanks slid open and the fog was vacuumed into the neighboring tank. The wizard was left slumped over the best he could in the small space while his neighbor pressed himself against the glass, struggling to break free as he suffocated on the suddenly too thick air.

Strucker watched his desperate bid to escape with a practiced sort of dispassion. "We've found that only those with the potential for magic produce the desired results, like those who've lost their magic to your disease, or your squibs, but there seems to be no shortage of those at the moment."

Through the fog and the desperate press of fists against glass, a blue-silver light was beginning to emanate, the first sign of power the man had shown since losing his magic near half a year ago. Strucker raised a clenched fist and immediately a pale gas was flooding the capsule rendering the man unconscious in a matter of seconds.

Strucker turned his back on the scene, two men, one void of consciousness and the second clinging to it by the tips of his fingers, the smoke from the experiment and the sedative mingling at the bottom of their glass prisons, a look of contentment began to make its way across his features.

"He'll be revived sometime later this evening, it's always best to give them several hours of uninterrupted rest before testing the effectiveness of the procedure, but from the display he showed just then he's sure to be on the more powerful end of the spectrum."

"And what are the side effects to be expected?"

"With our newly awakened wizard? None, save for a brief period of difficulty in control, he'll have much more power at his disposal than what's he's grown used to."

"And with the first?"

"Fatigue is our greatest setback at the moment." Strucker gestured to the man and the way too prominent bone cast shadows across his drawn gray skin. "We've worked him hard these past months, each session with the crystal takes more and more from him, he'll be dead within the week if we continue as we have been."

The wizards could already guess where this line of conversation was leading them, the representative for the German Ministry spoke up to save them the time it would take for Strucker to finally get to the point. "You want us to provide you a replacement."

"One is all I need," was the immediate assurance. "I was able to restore a sizeable amount their power with just him, if you can find me one more with _old_ blood, I won't need another and you'll have your army."

"How old?"

"How far back can you trace?"

"Even one is asking too much," Austria's representative denied. "This plague has hit us hard, the old families that haven't been altogether wiped out have gone into hiding to protect themselves and their lines."

"Humor me," Strucker coaxed. "The oldest families in your history. Who are they?"

"I can't say much for anywhere outside of Europe," France at least seemed willing to play along for the moment, "but the Blacks were one of our oldest."

"But the last Black heir nearly a decade ago," Germany reminded. "Lady Malfoy was a Black and so her son was as well, but the entire family was killed by muggles just two months ago."

"The Lestranges dated back nearly to the start."

"All passed in the plague."

"The Slytherins were of the oldest," Spain added. "They were absorbed into the Gaunts."

"And if rumor is to be believed, the last Gaunt was killed in the war."

There was a ripple of unrest through the crowd of wizards at that reminder.

"Anyone else?" Strucker prompted.

"The Peverells."

Germany scoffed. "The Peverells have been extinct for over a century."

"No," Croatia said. "The last Peverell was a daughter, the blood remained even if the name was lost when she married into another pureblood family."

"The Potters."

If the mention of the last Gaunt had the wizards uneased, the single mention of this one family had all of their hackles erect.

"Are there Potters remaining?" Strucker inquired.

"Only one."

His guests' strange behavior had Strucker curious and maybe just a bit unnerved. "What has you so concerned?"

"Harry Potter is the last of his line," Spain clarified when no one else would. "Three years ago we were at war with the rumored Gaunt heir. It was Potter who killed him and ended the war. But he did it by collecting three dangerous artifacts, those artifacts were cursed and because of that curse we are now at war with muggles and dying everyday from plague."

"One man is the cause behind all this trouble?" None of the others seemed to share Strucker's amusement. "Do you at least have him in your custody?"

"There was an attempt to detain him, in hopes of finding some way to reverse the curse through him, but he and an accomplice used an illegal ritual to send him into hiding."

"And none of you have been able to find him since?" Incredulity dripped from every one of Strucker's words.

Great Britain bristled, not appreciating the muggle's condescension one bit. "The ritual sent him through time. We have no way to find him."

"Perhaps you don't. Tell me first, are there no other viable options?"

There was a round of denials, of the old blooded families of Europe only Potter remained.

Strucker hummed, deep in contemplation for a moment. "If I were to find when he has gone, do you at least have the means to retrieve him?"

A strange spark of hope was beginning to light Great Britain's eyes. "We do. But can you really find him?"

"I have access to resources not many do." The recall to his earlier words were accompanied by a slow, slick smile sliding its way across Strucker's face. "I'll find your Harry Potter."

* * *

 **A/N: Finally some quality time with Bucky, I love writing him!**

 **But Infinity Wars though, right? Come scream with me on Tumblr.**


	12. Chapter 12

Harry was given a deadline, one week to prepare Rogers' combat unit for hostile encounters with magic users of his kind, one week to familiarize them with any dark magic they might run into and teach them every way to defend themselves against it. The SSR could afford them being out of commission for no longer than that.

Getting the job done in the allotted time frame wasn't completely out of the question, it wasn't as if Harry had to teach them how to cast these spells, only recognize them through sight and incantation and be able to determine on the fly the best way to avoid being killed by them. So he sat down, biro in hand, fresh sheet of paper before him, prepared to name every dark spell he'd ever encountered (and they were _numerous_ ) and how best to survive them. And he could think of _nothing_.

Harry had lost count of all the dark spells cast at and around him, he'd seen his share of cadavers torn open, dismembered, _disemboweled_ by dark spells. He'd fought in a war after all, and spent more time than he would have liked in Voldemort's head, but his own personal experience in actually _casting_ them was…woeful.

The most destructive curse he had in his arsenal was the modified cutting curse, _Sectumsempra,_ but it wouldn't even be created for a few more decades so was all but useless to him now. After that he had a myriad of cutting and blasting hexes he'd learned his later years in Hogwarts and during his time on the run, which might as well be tickling charms compared to the destructive, nightmare inducing curses Grindelwald's men would be sure to toss about when finding themselves in a fight against _muggles_.

It was frustrating being faced with how little he knew, how few spells of importance he'd been taught while at Hogwarts, even if a part of him could understand why.

The thing about ten years of peace was that it lulled soldiers of war and relics of battle into a comfort that made them complacent. The instructors and headmasters and board members of Hogwarts had certainly been complacent. Otherwise there would have been fewer lessons on turning cats into tea cozies and more on how to efficiently subdue a dark wizard. Some people probably felt strongly about perpetuating violence in the classroom, but surely they could have introduced more than stunners and disarming charms after Voldemort's return. There had been an entire year between the time he was confirmed alive and the time he took control of Hogwarts and they had done _nothing_ to prepare the students for probable run ins with all manners of dark wizards. Harry had felt their negligence in the war and he felt it even more now, when seven men's lives were dependent on knowledge he didn't have.

"So what do we do about it?"

After near an hour of staring blankly at a list made up of the only three truly dark curses he knew Harry gave up, tossed the sad sheet away, and went in search of Peggy. He explained the dilemma, unburdened every doubt and concern, and she was unimpressed.

"Their lives are dependent on this," she continued, tone sharp as whip crack. "So leave your pessimistic bullshit at the door and let's get to work figuring this out. What is stopping you from marching into the closest library for people like you and reading up on what you need to know?"

"I'm trying to teach them to defend themselves against dark magic and spells," Harry explained, "the best I would be able to find in a public library would be a few manuscripts on the history and theory of dark magic. For the specific stuff, curses and rituals, I would need a personal collection."

"Which you don't currently have access to," Peggy surmised.

Harry sighed, frustrated. "Not here. Not now."

"And there's nowhere else?"

Well of course there was, he could think of half a dozen semi- viable options, one of which was a half hour walk away, but they were options he hadn't considered for a _reason_.

His half-second hesitation of course wasn't missed by Peggy. "What are you thinking?"

"It's dangerous," he tried to protest.

She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by the halfhearted excuse. "How dangerous?"

"I lost control when introduced to just Adalgar's magic, to get just one book I'd have to be surrounded by it."

"Explain."

"I'd have to visit my world. We have a shopping district not even an hour away from here; in it there's a collection of shops geared specifically towards dark wizards. No one would look twice at my collecting a book or several on dark curses. But to get them I have to pass through wards of pure magic, rub elbows with people with the same power Adalgar and I have. I could lose control same as I did last time." Peggy didn't look fully convinced, so he carried on. "And that isn't the only danger. The library in New York is the furthest into my world I've gone since I first arrived here, there's a reason for that. I'm not supposed to exist yet, I don't know what impact my being here has on my future."

"So you've been keeping away to prevent accidentally changing your reality."

"Or purposely." Harry shrugged. "I can't say I haven't been tempted."

"But you'll do it anyway," Peggy said, entirely unmoved by his concerns. "For them."

"Of course I will," Harry scoffed, more irritated with himself at his inability to keep away from trouble than of Peggy's terrifying ability to sniff out his weaknesses and call him out on them. "I'm too _noble_ not to. And I won't lie, part of me is thrilled to even consider going back, even if it poses a bit of a danger."

"You'll take someone with you then, to minimize the danger. Rogers or one of his men if you'd like."

Take a muggle along with him into the wizarding world? There was an idea _asking_ for trouble.

"You get into far more trouble than is good for you," Peggy said, sensing his hesitation and moving quickly to nip it in the bud, "if something were to happen I would feel much better knowing you had someone to keep you from doing anything reckless."

"There are spells in place…" But even as he spoke he reconsidered. The wards were really only put in place to dissuade muggles from entering, and just on the Leaky Cauldron's entrance at that, once they were in he didn't think there were spells that could physically eject them. And it would be nice to have someone on his side if things were to go wrong.

"Rogers and Barnes."

Peggy blinked, surprised both by his easy acceptance and by his choice for backup. "Both of them?"

Harry nodded. "I'll be in good hands with the both of them. Besides I promised Barnes I'd show him more of the wizarding world and I owe him one."

If anything, Peggy looked as if she had more questions, but she shook off her curiosity for the time being to focus on the matter at hand. "Rogers and Barnes then. How soon would you be able to go?"

"As soon as possible," Harry said. "There's no need to wait, it's a quick walk from her. Though I suppose I'll need to stop off at a bank, all I have is muggle money but I'm sure they're able to convert it into what I need."

The issue of converting muggle to wizarding currency had never come up for him back in his Hogwarts days, he'd had not a bit of muggle money but too much wizarding. But he supposed the muggleborn students had to pay for their school supplies somehow, it made sense that Gringotts might provide currency exchange services.

"Don't bother. We have a few reserves in the facility you can draw from. Rogers shouldn't be difficult to track down either, he and the others were scheduled for a training exercise in a few hours."

"Should we add a stop to the colonel's office to let him know I'm borrowing two of his men?"

Peggy shook her head. "I'm authorized to sign off on tasks this small. I'll brief him once you've returned. To save time."

The young agent accounting the small reserves of funds didn't even blink when Peggy arrived with the request of a hundred quid, he handed it over within minutes of verifying her credentials and then they were on their way up to the common areas of the facility to search out the unwitting seconds for Harry's foray into Diagon Alley.

The whole team was in the mess hall, long since finished with their meals but hanging around until the exercise Peggy had mentioned.

"Agent Carter," Dugan called out when he noticed her entrance and the path she was cutting directly towards them. "Strange seeing you among us lowly folk."

"Almost as strange as the smell lingering around your boots," she teased. "But Agent Potter and I are here on official business, we were hoping we might borrow Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes for a few hours."

Rogers' immediately straightened in interest. "What can we do for you, ma'am?"

"Well this is more of Agent Potter's task, so I'll let him explain."

Harry looked around at the near empty hall, then surreptitiously waved his wand, casting a muffliato around the immediate area before speaking. "To properly train you all in recognizing and defending yourselves against magic there's a bit more I need to know," he explained. "I was never properly trained so I have to rely on self-instruction, but to do that there are a few things I need to collect from a nearby shopping district."

Falsworth aimed a playful grin Barnes' way. "They want you to go shopping for them."

"Not exactly," Harry laughed. "The shopping district is one of my kind's, it's been some time since I was among them so Peggy insisted upon…backup."

At just the mention of being introduced to more magic, Barnes lit up. "We're the backup?"

Harry shrugged nonchalantly. "You and Captain Rogers should fit in well among a crowd of wizards, and you're both large enough to make a nice human shield should I need one. I should warn you now though, we'll be running into all sorts of creatures while there, if you don't want to draw attention you can't react. The bank for instance, it's run by goblins."

Even Peggy appeared stunned by this revelation.

" _Goblins?"_ Barnes managed to stutter around his shock.

"Yes, tiny and very pompous. Don't stare, don't be rude, and don't _ever_ try to steal from them and there shouldn't be an issue."

"I'm sensing there's a story behind that, but I'm still stuck on the _goblins_."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Honestly they're not all that awe inspiring. I'd hate to see how you'd react to seeing the dragon they keep down in the vaults."

All the color drained from Rogers' face. "The _what?_ "

"Don't worry, we won't be going into those," Harry assured. "We'll just be popping into exchange some money for a book or two I'll be needing."

"Book shopping he says you're doing," Dernier muttered. "Something tells me it will be much more exciting."

"When do we leave?" Barnes grinned.

"Now, if you don't mind. It's a quick walk up the block. When we get to the pub that leads out to the shops you'll feel compelled to turn back, but that'll just be the wards trying to turn you around. Follow me and once you're through you'll be fine."

"Should I call for a car?" Peggy asked.

"We should do fine on foot," Harry said with a shake of his head. "We're only headed to Charing Cross. Before we do go though..." On the table were a handful of unused paper napkins, remnants from an earlier meal, Harry sized first Rogers then Barnes up before transfiguring a napkin each into a set of plain black robes then tossing them to their new owners. "You'll be needing these to fit in."

"Dresses?" Rogers asked dubiously.

"Robes. All the rage in wizarding fashion. If you're to come along with me you'll have to wear them."

Harry hid a smile at how quickly both men tugged the garments over their heads, they were a bit of a tight fit on the shoulders and Rogers was flashing a bit of ankle but all in all they looked presentable enough. Their teammates still howled in laughter and Harry allowed them a few minutes of ribbing the captain and sergeant before deciding it really was time to head out.

True to prediction, the walk to Charing Cross was easy enough and took no time at all, it was actually getting Barnes and Rogers through the Leaky Cauldron's entrance and the anti-muggle wards cloaking where he found a bit of a challenge. Rogers insisted they turn back to collect the shield they'd all agreed would be best served left behind, while Barnes was struck with the recollection that he'd yet to break down and service his rifle. But a guiding hand on each of the men's wrists was enough to propel them through the wards where, once past, they were able to shake off the worst of the effects.

"That was a fun time," Barnes grimaced.

Harry laughed at him as a wave of his wand transfigured his jacket into his own set of robes. "That was the worst of it. The entrance is right through here."

Beyond the alley wall Diagon Alley was near deserted; whether it was because of the frigid weather, it being the middle of a work week, or the war, or a culmination of all three, Harry wasn't sure. But he was grateful for the small crowd all the same.

"We'll be headed to Gringotts first."' Harry gestured to the crooked building at the end of the row. "Remember keep your heads down and don't stare."

Rogers and Barnes only partially followed his directive, he could _feel_ the wonder emanating from them as they took in the colorful and often magically animated window displays, decorated for winter and the coming holidays. They were at least discreet in their gawking and could be passed off as run of the mill tourists seeing Diagon Alley for the first time.

Harry expertly herded them into Gringotts and, upon catching his first glimpse of a goblin, Rogers honest to god _gasped_.

"Oh Merlin," Harry muttered to himself, exasperation in full effect.

"They're like grumpy little men!"

"You were about as tall as that one before you met your mad scientist, Stevie."

"Yeah, well that one there looks a bit like your ma."

"Good evening," Harry smiled up at the goblin at the closest unoccupied station, speaking pointedly over Rogers and Barnes' whispers. "I was wondering what your policy on exchanging muggle pounds to galleon might be?"

"Fifty pounds is the minimum we'll exchange," the goblin drawled, "with be a two percent exchange fee."

Harry nodded. "I have a hundred pounds."

"Should the exchange be made into predominantly galleons?"

"Sickles actually, if you don't mind."

The goblin nodded sharply and accepted his handful of notes before stepping down from his seat to duck into a room off the hall.

"This is amazing!" Barnes whispered as they waited, near bouncing on his toes in excitement.

"We haven't even done anything yet," Harry grinned.

"We're in a bank with _goblins_."

The goblin was quick to return, pounds gone and replaced with a small satchel of coins. "After the exchange fee you have thirty two galleons, eight sickles, and twenty-five knuts." He stacked the currency on the desk between them in neat little rows for himself, once Harry had confirmed it correct he swept it back into the sack. "Would you like to deposit this into a vault?"

"Oh there's no need for that." Harry accepted the bag from the goblin with a nod of thanks. "I'm afraid this will all be gone by the end of the evening." He thanked the goblin one last time and bid him a good evening before ducking out of the back.

"Gallons, sickles, and knuts is what he said?" Rogers asked once they were back out on the street.

" _Galleons_ , sickles, and knuts," Harry corrected, he fished around in the sack until he had one of each coin to show his companions. "A galleon is worth about three pounds, while a sickle is about eighteen pence and a knut is one. I'm afraid I never got the American conversions down though."

"Are these real gold?" Barnes squinted one eye as he held a galleon up to the weak sunlight.

Harry frowned contemplatively. "I don't actually know," he admitted. "My friend would though, she was scary smart. Knockturn Alley is right down there." He held a hand up so they paused just before heading down. "I keep telling you not to bring attention to yourselves but down here is where it really counts. There are all sorts down here, a few of Grindelwald's followers no doubt, if they realize you don't belong some won't hesitate to kill you."

Both Rogers and Barnes nodded, suddenly grim and the perfect picture of the deadly soldiers Harry knew they could be. He smiled though, to help lighten the mood if only a little.

"But don't worry, you look the part. Play it right and they won't ever know."

The flight of stairs leading into the alley were steep and narrow and at their base the sunlight cut off, as if the early evening rays couldn't or wouldn't reach into the pits of the alley. It was more crowded than Diagon, or maybe the tight space between the walls just made it appear to be busier. Either way the three men remained pressed close together, not making eye contact with the toothless hags and bedraggled warlocks peddling their cursed wares.

The bell above Borgin and Burkes announced their arrival with a dissonant jangle, as unpleasant as just about everything else in the place.

Harry nodded coolly to the shopkeeper behind the counter, Borgin or Burkes he could never tell, and stepped deeper into the shop. "Don't touch anything," he murmured to the two men behind him, eyeing a suspiciously innocent pincushion. "Could be cursed. Books are along the back wall. There won't be many, it's not their specialty, but there should be enough."

"Are _they_ at least safe to touch?" Barnes asked cautiously.

Harry shrugged. "Should be. The worst a book's ever done to me is scream…or well except for the one with the teeth, or the one that tried to drain my ex-girlfriend's life force."

"So that's a no?"

"Probably best to keep away."

Barnes reluctantly heeded the advice but still leaned in as close as physically possible to peruse the titles along the dusty, cracking spines of the books. " _Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter,"_ he read aloud. "That's a zinger."

"Keywords we're looking for are: dark arts, evil, curses, and things of that nature," Harry advised, skimming over a text on how to spot mudbloods.

"How about: _Magick Moste Evile?"_ Steve asked. "It's got evil in there and it has a bunch of extra, unnecessary letters added in to make it look more ominous."

"That's perfect," Harry grinned. "It's the standard dark arts text, any budding dark wizard will have stocked his arsenal with curses from here."

Cautiously, he plucked it from the shelf and when no curse took immediate effect he tucked it under his arm. "See anything else that might be of interest?"

" _An A-Z of Spooky Spells?_ " Barnes offered.

Harry flipped through the book and snorted when it proved to be a guide for "junior" dark wizards. "You can never start too young," he murmured, adding it and a darkly bound _The Dark Arts Outsmarted_ to his collection.

Borgin or Burkes looked over the books with a suspicious eye, when he brought his selections up to the counter, but Harry only shrugged when he turned it on him. "News of the dark lord has reached even my secluded neck of the woods. He has me intrigued."

The man grunted but accepted payment- nearly all Harry had- without protest. Not willing to push their luck any further, Harry hustled Rogers and Barnes out of the shop as subtly as he could manage. It wasn't until they were up top in Diagon Alley that he managed to release the tension he'd been holding in his shoulders pretty much from the moment they'd entered Knockturn.

"Sorry that had to be your first proper introduction to the wizarding world," he told the two men at his side with a sad little smile. "I swear most of it is a lot nicer and not near as creepy."

But Barnes shook his head emphatically. "No pal, my first introduction to the wizarding world was crooked buildings that don't have any business standing up on their own and honest to Christ _goblins_."

"The goblins were a sight," Rogers agreed. "And even Knockturn wasn't all bad, it had…character. But there is one thing I don't get."

Harry hummed in question as they began a slow pace back toward the Leaky Cauldron. "What's that?"

"If this sort of magic is illegal, why is there an entire sector of the district specializing in selling books and objects of its kind?"

"Well it's not illegal actually," Harry said. "Dark magic is frowned upon. _Very heavily_ frowned upon, but there's no laws prohibiting its use outside of only three specific spells. So long as you're not using it kill or maim its fair game."

"Aren't all dark curses used to kill and maim?"

Harry shook his head. "Not all. Some can be used on yourself to expand your lifetime or as wards to protect your home or rituals. I've not seen them all, but there are different spells for different purposes."

"So what makes it dark?"

Hermione had asked that same question once, during that short span of time between Xenophilius' outing of his involvement in the Hallows' union and his tumble through time. The ritual they were using was technically classified as dark, even though it caused no harm and required only a bit of blood as sacrifice. She'd been curious as to what had earned it that classification, was even making noise about doing some research into it when she had a few spare moments, but then everything that had happened _happened_ and she'd never gotten the chance.

"I don't know," he confessed for the second time that day. "There's been discussions, debates on that same question, but I was never much of a scholar. Maybe it's the intent behind the spells creation. What it was made to do. Or maybe it's the cost of the magic itself."

Barnes frowned. "The cost?"

"Every spell cast takes something out of you, it requires magic or energy or both. The longer you cast the harder it gets to continue and eventually you can't cast anymore until you've had time to recover. But maybe dark spells cost more than just your energy." He thought of Voldemort, flat faced, inhuman, and half insane from soul tearing rituals and blood thieving resurrections. "I've seen rituals that have had some gruesome side effects, the more you perform the more it chips away at your sanity and alters the sort of person you are." Harry shrugged. "I'm sure it's a widely debated topic, but like I said, I was never much of a scholar. Hermione was the smart one."

Barnes looked ready to protest, no doubt with some platitude about how _he_ thought Harry was smart. And it would be appreciated, it really would, but he was _so awkward_ at taking compliments and declarations of confidence and would rather just avoid the whole thing, so he scrambled to redirect Barnes' attention before he could get a word out.

Lucky for him they'd just reached the section of the alley where the storefronts were brightest and decorated with overt displays of magic.

Gambol and Japes was open even in this time period, nestled exactly where it had always been between Twilfit and Tattings and what would later become Diagon Alley's second book shop. Barnes and Rogers were taken with the little joke shop immediately; they'd been introduced to a few elementary charms a few days before during Harry's explanation and demonstration of magic and they'd gotten a taste of the darker side of magic in Knockturn Alley, but magic used to craft jokes and pranks was an experience of an entirely different sort and they were _delighted_. The commotion Rogers caused when Barnes introduced him to a gag pen that sent actual arcs of electricity dancing across his skin was loud and enough to draw them further back into the store to avoid the suspicious eyes of the shopkeeper.

The visit worked well to erase the lingering unease from their short time in Knockturn Alley, and even if Rogers and Barnes claimed to have not minded visiting the darker sector of the wizarding world he was glad it would no longer be the part of the trip that stood out most in their memories.

Gambol and Japes and Gringotts and exploding, prank toilet seats and _goblins_ were all they spoke of as they made the walk back to base. They were so caught up in their wonder and overwhelming excitement it was a moment before they realized they were being followed.

The two men would have been hard to spot on a normal day, they kept a fair distance back and didn't draw much attention to themselves among the flock of pedestrians Harry, Rogers, and Barnes were navigating their way through. But then there was a moment where they drew a few meters too close and Harry _felt_ them. They were wizards and just like with Adalgar he could feel the hair raising, goose flesh inducing energy of their magic. Once he became aware of them there was no way to ignore the deliberate way they matched pace with Harry and his companions.

After two detours down streets not on their route back to headquarters and a stop at a peanut cart where Harry took a second too long looking over the limited selection, Rogers and Barnes finally began to catch on that something was off.

"Pinstriped bowler hat and his friend with the pea green coat," Harry murmured for their ears only. "They've been on us since we passed the cathedral. At least. They're wizards."

Neither Rogers nor Barnes reacted outwardly save for the subtle curl of the latter's fist. "Do you think they followed us from the alley?" he asked.

"Could have. But you didn't give yourselves away as muggles so I don't see what has them so interested."

"Are we shaking them?"

"We're only a few minutes away from headquarters," Harry said. "Let's duck into that bookshop there and I'll cast a disillusionment spell. They won't be able to see us and we should be good to make it back."

They did exactly that, Harry cast the disillusionment and a notice me not on top of it while they were tucked behind a set of cases that just barely hid Rogers and Barnes' too wide shoulders. When their tails stepped into the store to search them out they ducked out before the door could swing shut and began the last leg of the trek back with a quickness.

It would have worked if a third wizard hadn't been waiting at the phone booth just outside of the textile factory that acted as the front for the SSR headquarters.

Harry hadn't noticed him until he was sidestepping a group of schoolgirls and ended up nearly right on top of him. The buzz of energy he was beginning to recognize as the presence of magic broke the man's cover the same as it had the other two's, but any wizard worth anything could see through a disillusionment when close enough and Harry had certainly moved within range when avoiding the muggles.

They reached for their wands at the same time, but Harry had always been quick on the draw and managed to land a stunning curse just before the other could put one to words. He stepped forward and caught the man before he could fall out of the booth and then Rogers was there with Barnes only steps behind. The charms hiding them had fallen in that hairsbreadth of space between Harry being discovered and casting the stunner, but no one around them seemed to have noticed two walking tanks appearing from literally nowhere, no doubt passing it off as failing eyesight or a trick of the light.

"Get him inside," Harry grunted, struggling to juggle the unconscious wizard and the books he was still holding tight. "Before the others track us down."

They were stopped just past the threshold of the shop, the SSR agents masquerading as workers recognized the three conscious men as members of the agency but none of them, not even Captain America, had clearance to bring in guests, no matter how urgent of a situation they claimed it to be. Peggy had to be called to escort them into the hidden lower levels of the facility and appeared wholly unimpressed when presented with their situation.

"This was meant to be an easy job," she snarked on the way down.

"Well we couldn't have expected we would be followed," Harry said defensively. "And we still would have made it back fine if that one wasn't lurking so close, he was right outside our door. That might have been a coincidence, but if it's not it'd be nice to know before they come kicking it down."

"What reason would they have to follow you?"

Harry shrugged. "They could have recognized Barnes and Rogers as muggles while we were in the alley. Or they're with Grindelwald and they know we have one of theirs."

Barnes sighed heavily. "Why does it feel like the second one is what we're going to end up dealing with?"

"It makes sense," Peggy said. "Phillips will be pleased at least. He's been tearing his hair out trying to come up with a way to get his hands on another one of this dark lord's men."

The lift let them out in a familiar hall leading to the same room another wizard had lost his sanity in only a few days prior. As Peggy guided Rogers and Barnes through the steps of properly securing the still unconscious wizard, Phillips arrived down the same juddering lift.

"What have we got?" he asked, taking in the sight of their newest prisoner.

"Wizard," Harry said shortly. "He and two others were tailing Rogers, Barnes, and me on our way back from a trip into the city. We managed to give the other two the slip but he was waiting right outside."

"Harry says he could be one of Grindelwald's," Peggy stepped in. "Come to retrieve their lost compatriot."

"If he is and he knows this is where we're keeping him, we'll have some problems on our hands," Phillips frowned. "We can't afford to be infiltrated by a bunch of magic users."

Peggy nodded in agreement. "But if we have been compromised, it's a good thing we have him to find out to what extent."

"You want to be the one to question him then?"

Peggy smiled blandly. "If you have no objections."

Phillips shrugged. "You won't hear any from me. Potter?"

Harry shook his head emphatically and none of them even had to ask why. The memory of Adalgar was still all too fresh.

"Try to get him to talk about what his boss has planned while you're in there."

Peggy rolled her eyes, as if annoyed Phillips even had to ask. "Of course," she said before turning to Harry. "How much longer until he's awake, do you think?"

"I knocked him out with a spell, I can wake him with another whenever you give the go ahead."

"A moment then. Captain do you and your Sergeant intend on observing?"

"Only if you don't mind."

Peggy waved a magnanimous hand. "Feel free. Have we searched him yet?"

"When we put him down in the chair," Barnes confirmed. "All he had on him was this."

His wand, knobbled and short with visible fingerprint smudges on the pale wood. Barnes held it reverently but with a dose of caution that made Harry smile, it wasn't the sort of weapon to go off without warning. But considering the sergeant's experience with wands began and ended with Harry's own he couldn't be blamed for his care.

Peggy and Phillips seemed unsure what to do with the thing, there was nowhere they could safely store it, not without putting it through the extensive SSR mandated logging process which wasn't an option for obvious reasons. And they too seemed to share Barnes' wariness of even touching it, so Harry rolled his eyes and plucked it from the man's hold.

"If he's one of Grindelwald's we'll destroy it," he said then shoved the wand into his back pocket. "If he's not we'll give it back. Wipe his memory and plant it on him."

Rogers looked surprised and Harry was guessing it wasn't because he'd suggested destroying the wand. "You can do that?"

"I know the theory of it," he shrugged. "I haven't had much chance to practice it of late though."

"So long as your half decent at it," Phillips grunted. "It'll be a useful skill."

Harry shook his head. "I don't make a habit of tampering with others' memories. It conflicts with my morals you see."

"Yes, that's very noble," Peggy snorted. "But that's something we can discuss at a later time. I'm about ready for that spell now, if you don't mind. Let me just take a seat first."

Where Harry had been a poorly concealed ball of anxiety fit to burst at any given moment when confronting Adalgar, Peggy sat across from her own source of information with a cool poise that left him full of equal parts envy and admiration. When she at least looked comfortable in the stiff backed, hard bottomed seats and her skirt was settled around her knees just right, she directed a nod to where he stood just outside the doorway.

" _Rennervate._ "

The door locked shut on its own behind Harry and the prisoner woke with none of the over-exaggerated gasps of air he'd seen done so many times on the telly.

Peggy waited patiently for him to shake off the lingering effects of the spell; she allowed him to twist in his binds, mentally catalogue the layout of the room, and surreptitiously reach for the wand that was no longer on his hip. She smiled when he failed to hide the shock at finding it gone and the concern at realizing just how tight his binds were.

"Do you know where you are?"

He looked at her, dumfounded and wary, but he didn't say a word.

"Or whose company you're in?"

Ten seconds in with two unanswered questions and Harry was almost certain he knew exactly how this interrogation was going to go. Peggy was unphased though, he always thought she had a patience that could match even his old head of house's.

"You were right outside our door when we took you in, so I'm sure you can understand our alarm. What's the point of having a top secret facility if just anyone can spend the day spying on it?" There was no inflection in Peggy's tone, none but the subtlest undercurrent of steel that made even Rogers, who stood watching through the two way glass beside Harry, stand a little straighter. "It raised a lot of questions finding you there, but the two I _absolutely must_ begin with? Why were you following Captain Rogers and his men? And how did you know where they would return?"

There was barely a pause between her second question and what would follow, but the lack of response was deafening all the same.

"I can already see you've made up your mind not to talk, the others made the same resolution. Of course they broke in the end, but they were weak, didn't last into the question for long and so I still find myself with questions."

And finally she got a reaction, and maybe the bared, yellow teeth in a mocking parody of a smile wasn't exactly what they were hoping for, but it was a _start_.

"You're lying."

Peggy didn't flinch or falter, she met the wizard's grin with her own curling smirk, a thousand times more dangerous than he could ever hope to be. "Am I, wizard? How much are you willing to gamble on that fact? Your freedom? Your wand? Your life? Although that seems it might be forfeit already, I can only imagine how your lord Grindelwald would react if he found you'd been apprehended by a couple of muggles."

Harry smothered a grin on the back of his hand. "Oh, that's risky."

So he hadn't been the only one who'd seen the disdain the wizard's face had taken on nearly the moment he'd locked eyes with Peggy, the way he'd taken in her perfectly muggle appearance and the lack of wand anywhere on her person, and drawn conclusions on the sort of man they were facing. That is, the sort like Adalgar who'd align themselves with the current dark lord.

The gamble seemed to have paid off only in part however, the wizard was suddenly doing an impressive imitation of a pail of sour milk which was always a good sign, but he wasn't immediate in spilling the secrets Peggy was aiming for, which wasn't.

"It wasn't a muggle who caught me," he said instead. "One of mine did."

"Yes well, it would be horribly unfair if HYDRA was the only one employing wizards. Ours just happens to have far fewer ulterior motives." Peggy's smile widened when the wizard could only gape, dumbfounded. "I wasn't bluffing when I said they talked, our methods of convincingthe tighter lipped to speak up is rather… _convincing._ But they're never able to talk for long before they expire. I was hoping you might be different. Shall we start from the top?"

"Do you know many wizards?"

"It's funny you think I'd answer even a single question when you've yet to grant me the same courtesy."

The wizard shook his head, disregarding the woman's snark. "If you have, you'll know about the Cruciatus."

Of course she did. Harry had mentioned the Unforgivables only just this morning.

"And you'll know that nothing you can cook up could even compare."

Peggy shifted in her seat, leaning back so she could take in the full picture of the wizard. She didn't spend much time carrying out interrogations, she'd been trained for it of course, but her talents were better suited for strategy and field work; tasks that required careful cunning and a firm hand, not the quiet tenacity needed to carry out sometimes hour long battles disguised as conversation eeking information bit by bit from recalcitrant prisoners. That wasn't to say she wasn't effective at it when posed the task, she'd never failed an interrogation because she was inordinately talented at getting someone's measure after only a few minutes alone with them. It was no trouble seeing the kind of man she was facing off against and deducing the best way to get him to talk, but there was a set to this one's jaw that spoke of nothing but trouble for her. She knew his kind, she'd tried interrogating only two like him before and both times she'd handed the job off to someone willing to take part in the less savory methods of questioning. And now he would have to be the third.

"I'm certain I can change your mind on that."

She left the room immediately after and Harry was already backing away because he _knew_ what she wanted.

"He's going to be like that then?" Phillips said, his mouth curling into the same distasteful frown her own had taken on.

"Nothing is more beneath some men than a muggle." She stared straight at Harry as she turned his own words against him, and in her gaze he saw regret, sympathy, but no hesitation. "Harry, we need you to speak with him."

"You don't want me to talk to him."

And there was no point in denying it, they both knew what they wanted from Harry. "No, darling, I don't."

"I can't."

"You will." Harry had only ever known the side of Peggy that was fierce, firm, but still entirely gentle and kind and fair. He knew she'd seen war and battle same as him, but he'd never been confronted with it, not until now in this moment where she was asking him to use magic they both knew he had no full control over while he was still heavy from the guilt of the last man he'd failed. "He never said it, but we all know it, he's with Grindelwald and somehow he knew where to find us. We need to know how many more know and how many more they plan to send. If we don't, if we're not ready, they could kill us all tonight."

"What are you asking him to do?" Rogers was the only one among them who still didn't understand. Realization had settled over even Barnes who looked not at all impressed with Peggy's ultimatum.

"They want him to use his magic to make the man talk," the sergeant explained.

"Knowing full well that I could end up killing him," Harry said, he didn't look away from Peggy though, even as he spoke. "Or worse."

"You spare him and risk us."

"That's not fair," Barnes protested.

"No, but it's true." She took his hand in hers. "Speak with him if you want, try to appeal to his sensibilities, but if you can't do it just this once. One more time and we'll never ask you again."

"This is not what I do." Harry shook his head sharply when she made to protest. "And I don't just mean _morally_ , I mean I don't have the knowledge, the spells in my arsenal to coerce someone, let alone torture. What happened before was an accident, I don't even know if I could do it again even if I wanted to."

"You can," Peggy said simply, "because we need you to. Just one more time."

Just the thought of inflicting half the pain on this stranger as he had on Adalgar made him feel physically ill, but Peggy had said and he had thought it sitting at Adalgar's bedside just the day before, one life in exchange for dozens more was nothing. And he'd had an entire meltdown after the thought, he'd broken down so hard he had needed to be rescued like some damsel and coaxed back to sanity by one of the men in the room with him now. But that didn't detract from the truth of the resolution. One in exchange for all.

"You can't let me lose control like last time."

Peggy nodded in immediate agreement. "Of course."

"If it looks anything like Adalgar you stop me, even if you have to knock me over the head to do it."

"You really want to do this?" Rogers asked and Harry laughed, low and deprecating.

"Of course not. But I don't have much of a choice, have I?"

He didn't try to mask his nerves when he entered the room, maybe he would come off as more sympathetic to their prisoner, maybe he would take pity on Harry and tell him what they wanted without all the torture business. Maybe he wouldn't.

But the wizard did speak almost immediately, Harry hadn't even had a chance to fully settle in his seat. "You're the wizard from before."

Harry dipped his head in a nod. "I am the wizard from before. I've come to hear your confession."

The dangerous edge he'd thrown at Peggy like a weapon was nowhere in the smile the wizard directed at Harry, he only looked amused. Maybe his unassuming demeanor _was_ doing its work. "You?"

"Yes, me. Adalgar was one of yours, wasn't he?"

Surprise and muted curiosity stole across the wizard's face for only a fraction of a second. "You were the ones who took him?"

And there was their first confirmation. He still hadn't said it outright, but in recognizing Adalgar he all but acknowledged he too was working for Grindelwald.

"They didn't know what he was when they brought him in," Harry confessed, relinquishing some truth in hopes of getting more from the man. "But I recognized him, his wand, his magic. He wouldn't speak either, but he did, eventually."

"If he told you what you wanted then you would have no need for me."

Harry shook his head. "I have plenty need for you. He was hesitant, I had to force him, but it was too much for him to bear.'

"You killed him?"

"No."

And there was the danger, finally the man was taking Harry as a true threat. "Then what?"

"He's alive, but his mind is elsewhere. I didn't want to. Didn't mean to. But…" Harry smiled deprecatingly. "I'm young and too powerful for my own good, I have no one to teach me how to control it, so sometimes it does what it wants and sometimes people get hurt." He leaned forward in his seat, eyes begging this stranger to understand. "I don't want to hurt anyone, but the men I work with need answers and I can get them."

"She said she would show me pain worse than our Cruciatus." The wizard looked Harry over, no fear in his eyes. "From you?"

"From me."

His gut clenched and something in his chest ached, he could hear his heart thundering and could feel every muscle within his body contracting in revulsion. Harry focused on that, he locked in on that fear and disgust and then he reached for the wizard. He touched him and the Hallows responded, they knew what he wanted and they could feel how badly he needed it and just like riding a bike, once you learned to do it once, your body never forgot. He purposely kept his body loose, unattached, and when he felt the hypnotic pull of a soul beneath his fingers he only held it and didn't tug.

"I want to know everything."

The wizard screamed, but he _spoke_.

* * *

Harry threw up after. Right outside the door in a bin Peggy had handily available for him.

But once he purged the contents of his stomach that was it, there were no panic attacks or mental breakdowns, he sat down to debrief and he was _fine_ because they got what they needed and they would all be safe.

He was with Grindelwald, the wizard whose name was Claude admitted, and he'd been sent with the two others to retrieve Adalgar. Grindelwald was afraid he'd do irreparable damage to his cause speaking to the wrong person and so had sent his men to bring him back if they could and kill him if they couldn't. They didn't know where the facility was or even who was within it, they'd been following a tracking charm that had been on Adalgar up until three days ago after which it had simply disappeared. They'd narrowed the location down to a fifty kilometer radius, in which the facility sat, and had been searching for anything of use when they'd spotted Rogers.

Rogers and his men were making quite a name for themselves among HYDRA's ranks, in the short time they'd been active they'd done more damage to the organization than just about anyone else in the war. So of course there would be a kill order out for them. But while Claude and his men were technically working with HYDRA, they were wizards first, so when they spotted Rogers and his sharpshooting sergeant within their search radius they knew it had to be more than a coincidence, so they followed him rather than kill him in hopes he might lead them to Adalgar.

Grindelwald didn't know where the facility was and he hadn't sent men to attack it. It had been a fluke, an unlucky coincidence. They would have to be overly cautious leaving the building from then on, but Claude had been the only one to see the facility and he wouldn't be rejoining Grindelwald or HYDRA's ranks anytime soon.

He didn't know much else that they didn't already, a few insights on Grindelwald's end goal (world domination) and even a few HYDRA bases wizards had managed to infiltrate, but none of the details they really needed. A disappointment on that end, but certainly much less worse than it could have been.

Phillips was the first to leave once they'd said all they needed to, while Peggy, Rogers, and Barnes hung back to do one last check on Harry.

"I'm all mixed up inside." He admitted if only to stop their badgering. "It was awful and I swear there's nothing you can say to make me do that again, but it came so easily. I'd done it only once before but all I did was call and my magic came."

"That's good then, yes?" Peggy said. "If it comes when you call and allows you some form of control then it's growing as it should be. What Howard is doing is working."

A knot of something he couldn't put a name to clogged Harry's throat at the reminder. "Yeah, it's working."

"And you stopped," Barnes reminded him. "You got what you needed and then you stopped before you hurt him."

"Before I hurt him _irreparably,"_ Harry corrected. "He still hurt. I don't like hurting people."

Barnes smiled, full of sympathy and understanding. "No," he said, "neither do I. But that's just the business we're in."

* * *

Harry went home right after, to read the books forgotten in the excitement and to prepare for the dark magic crash course none of them had had the foresight to postpone. When he went in the next day, it was with dark curses rattling in his head and the eyes of Peggy, Rogers, and Barnes tracking him worriedly.

They were waiting for his crisis of conscious no doubt, or a breakdown on the level Barnes had seen the day before, but Claude had lived and, more than that, his mind remained. He would be sore for a few days and traumatized for even longer, but the harm Harry had inflicted was passing, a few weeks from now all the man would suffer from would be a few painful memories.

That proved to make all the difference for Harry, even when he'd been alone in the dark of his bedroom with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him, that all-encompassing guilt had kept away.

So he ignored the worried looks the best he could, focusing instead on his purpose for being there. Ensuring Rogers and his men would remain unmaimed and alive against curses from Claude's kin.

"Wizards have crafted more dark spells than can be counted," was his preface. "If it can cut you, burn you, dismember you, disembowel you, enslave you, _kill_ you, there's a curse for it. I have experience in casting _three_."

Harry almost laughed at the incredulous faces that stared back at him, it would be funny if their lives weren't on the line.

"Fortunate for us, those three are the ones you're probably going to see the most of. Most other dark spells require a certain level of skill and finesse, but with these curses all you need is a strong enough desire to cause suffering.

"The first is the easiest to recognize and the hardest to counter. _Avada Kedavra_ is the incantation, it forms in a jet of bright green light, and it kills on impact; no pain, no drawn out production, just immediate death. It's called the Killing Curse and it's the one you'll see most often. When you hear it being cast or see that streak of green don't try to bat it away or hide behind your shields, duck, roll, hit the ground, do whatever you have to to avoid being hit. Because once you are it's over."

Harry gripped the wand he'd drawn when beginning so tight the molded wood creaked, the hum of its magic and sting of its sharp edges helped steady the nerves.

"I won't cast it, I never have and don't think I'd even be capable of doing it if I wanted to. But the next one…." He hesitated for only a fraction of a second before raising his wand, aiming it at Rogers who stood directly across from him. "Are you ready?"

He received a curt nod and so he cast.

" _Rictumsempra."_

Barnes stepped forward, worry taking over when Rogers doubled over with an enormous howl. He stopped in his tracks however when he realized he was shaking not with pain but laughter. There was a moment of confusion before all the others caught on to their commanding officer's predicament and began snickering in amusement.

"Tickling charm," Harry explained as he ended the spell to the relief of a red-faced and breathless Rogers. "It's like a thousand tiny fingers targeting your weak spots and tickling you until you can't breathe or move or think around the sensation. It's overwhelming."

Rogers nodded in vehement agreement.

"Now imagine those thousand tiny fingers targeting your weak spots as rusted scalpels, digging down to your muscle, scraping against your bone. It doesn't tickle anymore, it's agony, inescapable, unending agony. If you can imagine, then you'll have some idea of what the Cruciatus curse is like."

All signs of laughter were gone as the men listened to every word he said with a grim intensity.

"The incantation is _crucio_ , there's not light, no streak of color to let you know it's coming. Only the pain. The curse only ends when the caster decides it wants to end or they're forced to stop it, even after its over you'll shake uncontrollably for hours after, you'll ache down to your bones. If you're kept under it long enough, your mind will break and it can't be repaired. For obvious reasons I won't be casting that one either, but if you hear that incantation you should react just the same as you would for the killing curse. Duck.

"The last one, some consider it the tamest but only until they see it used to its full potential. I'll cast this one only once but only if I have your explicit permission."

Rogers exhaled nervously. "Will it hurt?"

"Not at all. It actually feels quite pleasant."

He frowned, not having expected that answer, but nodded all the same. "All right, go on."

Before he cursed Rogers, Harry turned to his six comrades. "Do you spar often?" He met the round of confused affirmations with a pleased nod. "Good. _Imperio_."

Harry would never be comfortable casting _any_ of the Unforgiveables, but after his heist on Gringotts he knew he was fully capable of at least this one. Immediately the glazed look of full subservience fell over Rogers' face as his entire body went lax.

Harry gestured to the men behind the man. "Don't kill them, don't hurt them, but subdue them as quickly as you can."

Harry had been notably absent for those days following Rogers' transformation into a supersoldier, he'd never been present to see the myriad of tests performed to evaluate his speed, strength, and dexterity and he'd certainly never been given the chance to see it in a real fight. So seeing him now, the brutal yet graceful way he moved and fought would have been awe inspiring if he weren't fighting his own friends under Harry's command.

Barnes was the only one who stood a chance against the unexpected attack, while the others were tangled in their own laces and jackets in a handful of seconds each, Barnes could defend himself against Rogers' unorthodox but efficient attacks for nearly a full thirty seconds before he wound up in a headlock firm enough to keep him down but still gentle enough as to not restrict his airways or cause him any undo discomfort.

Harry ended the spell the moment the fight was through and Rogers released his friend in an instant, he was stunned and unnerved and looked to Harry for an explanation.

"That was the Imperius," he said as the others gingerly detangled themselves from clothing and rose from the twisted heaps they'd been tossed into. " _Imperio_. It takes total control over the victim's mind, whatever the caster wants them to do, they do it. You could be hit with that in the middle of a fight, told to kill your allies, and you would do it."

Barnes looked especially horrified. "Shit."

"There's some good news though," Harry added, striving for some levity. "If you have a strong enough will and you're exposed to it enough times you can shake off the effects of the curse, you can refuse the commands of the curse altogether. We'll work on it until you all can."

"Please," Rogers sighed, looking immensely relieved. That little demonstration proved how devastating having the curse cast on him specifically could be, because if it was a real fight, against real enemies, there would be no orders to avoid injury or death, it would be _encouraged_. And Rogers was more than capable, physically, of obeying.

"It'll take time and Phillips only gave us a week to get this done, but it's possible. But the hard part is over, you've see them now, the Unforgivables. The three worst curses to be cast by wizarding law. Be caught even casting one and that's a lifetime in prison."

"You just cast one," Dugan pointed out, looking shifty.

Harry grinned. "Yeah, so it's a good thing I wasn't caught doing it."

"Was that your first time casting one?"

The grin faded into something more rueful at that. "No."

"Is that right?" Falsworth, and all of the others for the matter didn't actually look all that surprised. "Would it be too much to ask how many times before today you've cast one?"

"Three times. The Imperius once, Cruciatus twice."

That answer did cause a ripple of surprise through their ranks, they'd likely suspected he'd cast only the Imperius. There was a pause as the new truth was processed, but then Barnes asked one more question.

"How many have you had cast on you?"

"All of them."

"But you said…"

"That once you're hit with the Killing Curse it's over, yes. And that's still true. It's _always_ true except for those two times when it wasn't, but there were extenuating circumstances." Harry waved away the barrage of questions. "But that's a story for another time. We still have work to do.

"The Unforgiveables are the worst curses cast at you and will certainly be the ones you encounter most often, but they won't be the _only_ curses you encounter and the others are just as deadly and oftentimes even more nasty.

"Let's start with the entrail expelling curse…."

* * *

Harry had only learned the curses he was naming and detailing to Rogers and his men just the night before, he'd been up almost until dawn searching out the worst of them and committing them to memory in a show of studiousness that would make Hermione proud. He'd never cast a single one before, most he hadn't even _seen_ until reading them that night, but when it finally came time to demonstrate on a cluster of conjured dummies, the results were…not awful. It would take time and practice before his curses would roll from the tongue and tear through his enemies with the same ease he'd seen Bellatrix's accomplish, but he knew he could get there. And seeing cotton innards spilling across the floor and flesh colored cloth peeling away from the mannequin even in a toned down display of what his curses could do acted as effective motivators for the men.

By the end of the three hours they had together every last man could identify the spell coming their way either by its appearance or its incantation and had worked out the best way to avoid coming in contact with them all. Harry meanwhile was finding it easier with each curse he cast; where at first his entrail expelling curse could barely split the skin of the dummy's torso, now it sent cotton organs exploding everywhere. It was disconcerting but thrilling all the same.

"That went much better than even I'd hoped," Harry said as they wrapped up for the day. "We may not even need the full week Phillips gave us."

Dugan cursed in relief and his fellow soldiers were quick to repeat the sentiment. Learning magic, even dark magic, was all fun and good, but they all missed knocking in kraut heads and getting Schmidt worked up into a fit.

"And we've got plenty of new spots for you boys to hit just in time too," Peggy added. "With quite a few wizards to give you all some real time practice."

"Don't tease me with a good time now, Agent Carter," Dugan grinned.

She smiled, wide and teasing. "I always make good on my promises, Dugan." Then she turned her back on the hooting laughter of the team and met eyes with Harry. "Can I have a word?"

He nodded, powerless to deny her though he had a good idea already of what she wanted to speak about and knew he wouldn't find much joy in it.

She pulled him only to the other end of the hall, out of hearing range of anyone save for potentially a super soldier or two. "You look as if you slept well."

"I did actually. You expected something different?"

"Don't fake like you're some kind of idiot," she scoffed, eyes rolling back in her head, "you know I did. You really had no trouble last night?"

" _Really_ ," Harry swore. "I slept well, all night in fact. I don't like what I did, I'm not comfortable with it and I won't ever be, but…Barnes was right, it's the business we're in and I can't _cry_ every time I have to hurt someone or kill someone to keep a person I care about alive. I'll just have to suck it up and get used to it."

Because even when he was done here with this time period and its set of problems, he'd have another war, another fight on his hands, he'd be expected to kill Voldemort again and any Death Eaters aiming to do it to him first. And sure he was learning the spells to get the job done in a variety of different and gruesome ways, but it wouldn't mean anything if he didn't have the grit to actually perform them when it mattered.

"Just don't ask me to _torture_ someone else, not if we can find another way."

Peggy looked at him, brown eyes wide and surprised and maybe a little pleased, then she nodded. "Barring life altering and/or _ending_ situations, of course." Harry scoffed and she laughed. "I at least have to ask, even if you do say no. Though something tells me you won't."

"Of course I won't, I can't help but be the hero." He heaved an overdramatic sigh that caused her even more laughter. "It's my curse."

"Well you bear it well." Peggy flicked a glance over his shoulder to where Rogers and men were lingering, they were occupied in conversation, boisterous and fully at ease in each others' company, but waiting for _something_. "There was talk of drinks."

Harry frowned, what had he said, or rather his face said, to warrant that non- sequitur?

"Steve wanted you to come along, if you were up to it."

So it hadn't been him, but Rogers. "It's barely past noon."

"Is that a no?"

"No."

"Good," she chuffed him under the chin. "You could do with some fun. You're so grim all the time, darling."

Harry snorted, Merlin he loved the woman but it was like having a second Hermione around at times. "And imbibing will cure that?"

"If only temporarily."

"And the same goes for you?"

She smiled good-naturedly. "When I'm given the chance. Not today though, I'm not blessed with so light of a schedule as you men."

He rolled his eyes in mock outrage. "You're encouraging me to go and won't even be there to keep me company?"

But of course she was, there was hardly a time Peggy wasn't arranging and plotting _something_ , it was as instinctual as breathing for her. He just wasn't used to her schemes involving him, and couldn't imagine what outcome she was looking for.

"You'll have plenty of company, more interesting than myself even."

"That's a lie."

"Only a little one." She gave him an encouraging nudge backwards, toward a captain who was glancing their way just a few times more than might be usual. " _Go_. Have some real fun at least once before we're all reminded of this terrible, bloody war we're trying to put an end to."

There wasn't much of a protest he could put up, Peggy had locked in on this strange desire to see him have _fun_ and there would be no shaking her from it. Here he was in a completely different era but still with a bullheaded tempest of a woman ordering him about, it'd give just about any other guy a complex.

"It's no wonder you're so good at your job," he muttered good naturedly even as he let himself be pushed another step back. "You're _bossy_."

Rogers smiled at him as he approached, inordinately pleased. At least Peggy hadn't been lying when she'd said the captain had asked for him to come along, he wouldn't have put it past her to have made that fact up, or stretched the truth of it just a little to get him to agree.

But almost unconsciously his face rearranged to smile back, even if his was tinged with a touch more reserve, there wasn't any other expression he could make when faced with Rogers' megawatt grin. "I heard something about drinks?"

* * *

There was a pub a few streets up that was still stocked and serving even though just round the corner an entire block had been taken out in the blitz. It was a little run down, the sign bearing its name of Whip and Fiddle had lost its first two coats of paint, but the welcome was warm when they entered and the first round was up before they'd even parked in the stools.

The man pouring their drinks was a good few years older, he had a grey shot beard that lent his face some kindness and a wide grin he directed at Harry when he sat himself near the end of the bar. "An addition to the team?"

Rogers smiled with a familiarity that spoke of how often they visited the little pub. "He's a friend."

"Too smart to get caught up on the frontlines with us jarheads," Barnes said.

"You drinking Schlitz with the rest of your guys?"

Harry was still pretty green behind the ears when it came to harder drinks, but he'd spent enough time around Howard Stark and his liver of steel to know what the only right answer to that question was.

"If I wanted piss water I'd go round back and drink from the loo."

The man grinned, wide and amused. "You a Guinness sort?"

"Johnny Walker actually. If you have it." He would never be a fan of the hard stuff, but it was the closest he could get to the taste of firewhiskey and sometimes he liked the reminder of home.

"Good man. Good taste."

"We'll get along, you and I," Falsworth saluted with the only drink beside Harry's that wasn't piss yellow beer.

"Cheers mate."

Their glasses met in the middle with a pleasant clink, while the rest of the team groaned mockingly about another stuck up limey joining their ranks.

"Careful with all that," the bartender warned. "You're in our home now. Us limeys outnumber you one to a hundred."

"Sounds like a good fight to me."

"But not one you'll win, I'm afraid," Harry laughed. He hadn't spent much time around Americans before falling in with Erskine and his cohort, but he was pretty sure Dugan's ever present readiness for a fight was a trait unique to himself. Not even Rogers, pre-serum infusion, had been so _eager_ for a tussle. "We're scrappy."

Rogers nodded in wry agreement. "I've got bruises up my side to prove it."

If it had been anyone other than the _supersoldier_ complaining Harry might have felt sorry for marking them up with his magic, but the man was tough, Erskine had seen to that, so he only waved his hand negligently and said, "You'll be healed up by the end of the day."

"Those books did some real good," Barnes said, he spared a quick look over to the bartender who'd moved a few paces away to care for another guest, well out of hearing range. "You learned that all in one night?"

"I read pretty late into the night but I didn't get the chance to practice until just this morning with you all."

"You did well in school then?" Gabe Jones guessed and Harry snorted.

"Not even, I was an awful student. No motivation. Drove my best friend mad, she was the prodigy."

"Stark speaks highly of you," Rogers protested. "And you know he doesn't give out compliments so easy."

"I'm the only wizard he knows, of course I'd be impressive to him. Meet another and you'll find out quickly how lacking I am."

"Well you threw our supersoldier across the room with just a word," Morita said. "So not lacking everywhere."

"You said you went to school for this?" Barnes asked.

Harry nodded, moving on to the new topic gratefully. "I never finished, things got tough my seventh year and I was forced to put schooling on hold until it was sorted out. But the years before that were some of the best I can remember. Hogwarts _embodied_ magic; moving staircases, talking portraits, ghosts."

" _Ghosts?_ "

"They were harmless for the most part. Friendly. Even if they did have a habit of walking through walls at the worst times."

He recalled Myrtle's late night visit to the baths his fourth year with a pang of nostalgic disgust. He missed the weepy ghost just as much as he didn't, but there was never a time where that memory wouldn't leave a grimace of distaste on his face.

"What else is real?" Barnes prompted. "You've said goblins and ghosts and _dragons_ , what else is there?"

"Just about anything else you can think of. Mermaids and giants and werewolves and unicorns, and even things you _couldn't_ imagine; ten foot tall, talking spiders, talking mirrors, flying cars."

"Stuff of the future."

"In some areas," Harry admitted, "but in others we're still behind the times. We write with quills, see by firelight, seal letters with wax and sigils. In some instances we're lightyears ahead, and in others we still have _much_ to learn."

"Why do they hide?" Jones wondered. "We could learn so much from each other."

"Fear, I think. Of being expected to solve all the world's problems with magic, and being persecuted when they wouldn't or couldn't." Harry glanced around. They were still alone, it was too early for a reasonable sized crowd to be filling the pub and the bartender had disappeared somewhere in the back, so he felt safe going on. "Wizards make up a fraction of the population, there's thousands of you for every one of us. Any fight between our two people would only end in our destruction, we're more powerful one on one, but there are so many more of you, and with each day your technologies get more advanced, and more deadly."

"But why would we fight you?"

"Because you don't understand us, who we are, what we want, how we can do what we can. And we would never let you. The common folk would rise up in fear if they knew half of our history and the things we've done. The church would make no protest because there's nothing more unholy than a witch. And the government, they'd put up a token protest, insist on saving the lives of one or two, for research purposes. But the rest? They're competition, best to eliminate them before they get it in their heads that they want the world all to themselves."

"We would never…" Falsworth stopped himself before his sentence could even fully form, realizing that maybe they would.

And Harry could only smile, just a little bitter, because there was no maybe for him, they _would_. "Fear is a powerful motivator. And it's not completely unjustified, not all of my people are _good_ , you know that well enough by now. Set a few of them out onto the streets to perform the spells you saw me do today and of course there would be cries for blood."

"Well I'm not having it," Barnes was scowling, clearly unimpressed with the turn the conversation had taken. "There's been enough war to last us a lifetime over, we'll figure out some way to get along because like hell I'm dying without having seen a dragon up close."

And just like that, the heavy mood inching towards dark broke, Harry's next smile was wider, more cheerful as he said, "That's the whole reason I'm here, isn't it? There won't be even a whisper of war between our people if I have something to say about it."

The scowl disappeared from Barnes' face and he reached over to knock glasses, same as Harry and Falsworth had done earlier. "Keep on with the good work then, kid."

They gave up on their Schlitz after the second round, changing it out for a myriad of bourbons and whiskeys that found them the buzz they'd been chasing. But while Dugan and Falsworth and even Jones and the others tossed each drink back with a cheerful abandon, Rogers and Barnes were a little more conservative while Harry hadn't even ordered a round past the first.

"Someone's got to keep an eye out," Barnes explained when Harry questioned them on it. "We ran into those wizards just last night, there could be more canvassing the area, so it's probably best one or two of us stays sober enough to make sure the rest make it home without being followed."

"And it's been hard for me to get drunk since the serum," Rogers threw in. "Haven't managed it yet. It's not as fun without the promise of a good time."

"You had a good time before, did you?" Harry teased. "Unless fistfights behind the barracks count as such."

Barnes laughed. "I forget you two were familiar before he got this way," he gestured to encompass the height and bulk of the man in question. "Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who remembers him from before. Did you get on before the serum?"

"No," Rogers said just a little sheepishly. "I don't think he liked me all that much."

"I didn't dislike you!" Harry protested. "I just…misunderstood your reasons for wanting to join up. Once I understood you a little better I liked you just fine."

"What did you think he wanted to join up for?" Barnes asked.

"To prove that he could."

Rogers spun his glass between his fingers. It was a sure sign of nervousness, he'd have to work on that little quirk. "That _was_ part of the reason," he admitted. "It wasn't easy being rejected and mocked because of my size, but it wasn't the only reason."

"I know," Harry said. "I saw. It's why I didn't put up a fight when Abraham decided you would be the first."

"It's still work trying to get along with him." Barnes knocked shoulders with Rogers in a playful gesture, the other man rolled his eyes, no doubt long since used to this brand of teasing. "Walking around all patriotic and shit. And the outfit. How often you see a fella in tights?"

"Last I heard you _liked_ the uniform. Weren't you the one asking if I was gonna keep it?"

"Course I did, I can wear anything and look good when I'm standing next to the guy in star spangled spandex."

Harry snorted into his glass, Merlin he couldn't wait until he was back in a time where he could rib Ron over his questionable dress robes and Hermione's penchant for wearing ink stains and used quills as accessories. That easy familiarity was no question the best part of their friendship, it was disconcerting and fascinating to see it mirrored in two men completely unlike them in all ways but the one that counted.

Maybe it was about time he talked to Howard about giving their experimental procedure another go. It'd been nearly a week since the first and, other than the unfortunate incident with Adalgar, there hadn't been any negative side effects. The excitement of half reaped souls and trips to Knockturn Alley had been a nice distraction, one he might have actually needed, but it was about time they got back to work.

Tomorrow, he resolved. Tomorrow he'd crack the whip and the SSR would get back to fulfilling their end of the bargain.

* * *

The wizards had been vague, they'd shared everything they knew but it had never been much. Potter, the boy, _the child_ , to have caused them so much grief and destruction had fallen through time; he'd intended to go back only a year was all that they'd been able to glean from the ritual, but he and his accomplice had botched it, left a few important runes out in their haste and performed it during the wrong time in the lunar cycle. The boy had been thrown back further, they assumed, or he'd been killed.

It was up to Strucker to figure out which of the two it was, and, if it was the former, where he'd ended up.

He'd expected there to be a challenge, the possibilities of when Potter could have ended up were endless and if the boy had survived only to be thrown into an era pre-modern conveniences they would have been hopeless to find him. He expected it to take time, weeks if not months of painstaking researching, tedious sifting through CV footage and government databases before they received even the hint of a clue. He expected to exhaust resources, favors he'd been saving for his hour of need, connections that were only good for one time use.

But he got lucky.

Or Potter got careless.

It was a photo he found, in files his brothers in SHIELD had allowed him access to, uploaded to SHIELD's database for reasons more sentimental than practical. It was taken in a lab, teeming with men and equipment that was cutting edge at the time but still so outdated now. The focus of the image was a man, older, wearing a lab coat and speaking into a microphone. At his back was a pod that easily stood twice as tall as him and was opened to reveal the painfully thin figure of the man who would become Captain America.

And just beside the pod was him.

His face was turned just slightly off center and the green of his eyes was made near black by the colorless photo, but the round spectacles, the dark, unruly hair, the hint of a scar peeking out from overlong bangs were enough to alert the recognition software to a match.

Strucker narrowed the focus on the black and white picture, drawing it in tighter and tighter until the blurred figure stood prominent in the center. He didn't need it, he'd spent long enough studying the image during his search, but on another screen he pulled up a second picture, this one in color with the bold words of "Undesirable No. 1" framing the grim face that was its subject. A rush of satisfaction flooded his system, he did so love solving puzzles.

They were a match.

"Doctor List."

His associate was there in a moment, he'd just been preparing to leave for the night, but it seemed Strucker had one more task for him.

"Get in contact with our friends at the ministry." Was the order. "Let them know it's done. It's time we bring our wayward wizard home."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: When I say trying to write this chapter was like pulling teeth _, I mean it,_ lucky number thirteen fought me the whole way and that way was loooong. This is the longest chapter I've published yet, I had half a mind to cut it in half but you all deserve this. So suffer. **

* * *

Harry was back in that little room, strapped to that cot, preparing for his second dose of hallucinogens by the end of the week. He knew what to expect when Howard stuck the needle in his arm this time around, was able to brace himself for what was to come, but somehow that made it _worse_.

The apparitions had changed; it was Ginny this time, emaciated, riddled with the telltale growths of scrofungulus. She'd lost her beautiful hair, the little bit of her skin visible beneath the countless boils was ashen, gray, and she stared at him with eyes full of _hatred._

Then there were Fred and George, standing on either side of him, separated by a force through which they couldn't see each other as they cursed him and his name and they day their younger brother looked to him and thought to call him friend. Because it had been _that_ to ruin their lives, to separate them by a barrier in which there was only one way to cross.

Teddy was the worst.

He sat on Harry's chest, weighing more than a child his size had any right to. His little arms stretched out for the near translucent forms of his parents, he wailed for them, did all he could to reach them, and still failed.

When Harry's magic finally burst free to batter at the walls in useless defense, the vents opened wide and rushed the room with poisoned air and he was _relieved._

When he roused, Howard asked him what he'd seen. His magic had reacted quicker this time, and it had been so much more violent, but Harry couldn't bring himself to say. He retreated to the corner of the lab cleared away for him specifically, to curl beneath the shock blanket Peggy handed him without a word and tried to recover. And when the allotted observation period passed, he left for home.

If he'd stuck around a while longer they might have seen the spike in his brain activity, the change in his magic that showed it was working so much sooner than they could have anticipated. But Harry's luck was infamous in that he didn't _have_ any, so he left too soon and they missed it, hadn't even bothered to look because the last time they'd tried the procedure, it took two days before his magic saw any change. This time it barely took two hours.

Harry had decided to walk home, for fresh air and all that, already thinking of all the things he wasn't going to do in exchange for a little extra time with his bed. But then a duo of women passed him, and at first glance they were unremarkable, both were pretty with contrasting hair in light and dark and dressed neatly in the latest fashion. They weren't speaking to each other, never once glanced at each other, but he knew they were together because they walked side by side, close enough for the backs of their knuckles to brush. Perfectly innocuous.

Then he looked again, and one woman _shimmered._

There were times in London when it got so hot, the sun's beams reflected off of the pavement and distorted the world in shimmering rays of heat. But it was early-January, not the time for weather that produced heatwaves, especially not heatwaves localized around just one woman. So he looked harder and longer with more than just his eyes, and he saw past the front she was hiding behind.

This woman was like Jerome. Like Fred. She was substantial, but just barely, paler than she should be, grayed and fading even in the dress that should have been as pale blue as the first flower in spring and the perfectly twisted rings of blond swept fetchingly over one shoulder.

And then he blinked and the curls were gone, burnt away, the skin across half her face, down her neck and into the neckline of her ruined dress grew spotted with blood and soot and char, her skin cracked open and peeled from the heat of a fire that had kissed too close. How she once was and what she was now twisted and morphed and merged in fluid motion between each breath and blink.

Then she looked over her shoulder to him, one moment beautiful and young, the next fire kissed and grotesque, and she looked _afraid_. But as if compelled by a force not her own, she shifted her course to match the sudden change in his. Harry turned on his heel and marched quickly across the street and she moved with him, away from her companion without a glance or a word. She fell into step just behind him, too wary to approach but unable to let him leave her sight.

Harry ignored her the best he could while she worked valiantly to keep up. Only once did she draw too close, but one sharp look from him and she fell back without complaint.

He needed to get away, not from her, he knew that now that she'd seen him and what he was there was no shaking her. No, he needed to get away from everyone else, witnesses who might see him interacting with thin air and call the crazy police to come scoop him off the street.

They branched away from the densely populated streets, in the direction of the south east end of London and opposite where he should be heading. The further they went the less people there were, the fewer stores without windows and doors boarded over to be seen, the rarer a building without some evidence of structural damage or fire impair was passed.

Harry had wandered into one of the many parts of the city devastated by the Blitz purely by instinct.

Or perhaps not instinct, but the directions of the shade he didn't even know he'd been listening to the entire time. The thought didn't frighten him as much as it once might have.

Destination finally reached, he stopped to lean against one of the less unsound buildings and waited. It didn't take long for the woman to catch up, no most of his waiting was because she hesitated a good few meters away, still uncertain even though the fear had gone.

"Where do you come from?"

She didn't offer a verbal response to his question, instead she turned and began walking again, this time Harry allowed her to lead. As they picked their way through the detritus more shades peeled themselves from the shadows of burnt out homes and demolished businesses; Harry allowed them each one glance before looking away, purposely unaffected. When they stopped it was at the foot of a tenement building near completely caved in on itself, the stairs leading up its stoop remained mostly intact though, so he sat and she moved to stand just beside him.

"This was your home?"

"Yes."

Harry had to strain to hear her, not because she spoke softly but because her words were spoken without the presence of any real vocal chords. It was something more than hearing, something he didn't fully understand but still could recognize.

"It's not anymore." He gently informed. "Your soul doesn't belong here."

The apple of her cheeks blistered and split with the force of her frown. "Where else is there?"

"Something is after. I've never seen it, but I know it's there."

"How?"

He shrugged, because there was no way to explain how he knew, he hadn't even believed the words until he'd said them just then, but the moment he did he'd known they were true. "Don't you want to find out for yourself? Or would you rather stay here, stuck between reality and death, haunting people who can't even see you."

"You can."

"I'm different."

"But my sister…"

Harry remembered the woman she'd been walking beside, the one she'd abandoned so quickly to follow him. "Loves you. Misses you. But she'll move on, so should you."

He held out his hand, only just enough that she'd have to move closer, bridge the gap to take it. And she did. It wasn't like what happened with Fred; there was no pain, his entire body vibrated with the pure energy of her soul, but he didn't keel over and she didn't disappear.

At his side a man appeared, dressed in simple grays he'd seen once before. The fear had returned to the woman, she could tell this newcomer was not like the other spirits who continued to linger a safe distance in the background, but she allowed Harry to pass her hand into his and even offered a tentative one of her own when Death's reaper offered her a kind smile.

"More will be coming," the reaper said, eyes wide with intrigue and trained on Harry. "In case the others might have changed their minds as well."

Harry nodded his thanks, then the reaper and his soul were gone. He rose from his stoop, headed in the direction of the more populated side of the city and finally home, but not without a warning for any who might be listening.

"When the reapers come, you'd do well not to turn them away a second time."

* * *

Harry left that demolished little corner of the city and its undead inhabitants, and the world was different. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say he sawit differently, _felt_ it differently.

The people around him were tethered to the earth, to life, by a force in which there were no words to describe. Blink and it was gone, but if he focused Harry could see them, shining strands bright and anchored to the ground beneath them.

His middle aged landlady had a tether that stretched short, she liked her smoke and her brandy, but her small son's was expansive and breathtaking for all that it spoke of life.

His encounter with the shade of that lost woman, his first not spent in confusion or fear, had changed him, allowed the power he and Howard had forced loose to take yet another form.

It was a relief when he reached his rooms, where he could draw tight his blackout curtains and fall onto the floor directly in the center of his room. Silencing charms layered his walls thick so none of the sounds of the other tenants and their evening habits breached his room. It was silent and dark and perfect after the day he'd had.

He wasn't nauseous or sore like he'd been following his first encounter with Fred, and he didn't feel terrified and a bit violated like after Jerome; his skin buzzed and felt as if her were too full of caffeine and sugar, but there was none of the fear or disgust. Never once had he felt so _at ease_ after being an unwilling conduit of the Hallows' magic, he latched onto that, forced himself to remain in that state of calm as he tried to imaging the ripple and flow of time.

It was a river, enormous and violent and churning and he was caught right in the middle. The shore was only a few meters away, but to get to it he would have to to swim adjacent to the current that was so strong his arms felt as if they would snap just trying to bat against it.

The first step was a labor of pure stubbornness, the second a feat that took every ounce of will he had, the third he wavered and that moment of hesitation cost him everything. In an instant he was swept under and the image was gone. He snapped back to the dark of his room with a desperate scramble for air.

He got back to his feet and with a twitch of the curtains, flooded the room with light. He had failed, but his mood remained unsullied. He hadn't expected to succeed, he hadn't expected to see anything at all but he _had_. He'd seen time, he'd seen the ebb and flow of the stream and it was just like Death had said, once he was there he just knew what he needed to do to conquer it, to bend it to his will and twist it to suit his need. He only needed the power to do it.

And soon enough, he _would._

* * *

Harry was back at base the next morning, the sun was just shy of risen and he was once again with the SSR, this time to speak with Howard who took the news of his magic's positive reaction with overwhelming optimism. His brain activity from the day before was near doubled from the last time they'd taken a measure, Howard guessed another four procedures over the course of two months and Harry might have all the power he needed.

Two months and he could be heading home. _Two months_. After waiting this long, having even a tentative countdown was surreal.

Howard kicked him out right after, his magic was still trying to settle and it was throwing all of his equipment off while it was, so he went to the Commandos to try and work off some of the buzzing energy beneath his skin.

He and the combat team had had their last designated training session together almost two weeks ago, but they still came to him between ops for a little extra practice. Harry looked forward to the sessions, the Commandos couldn't cast spells back at him, but it was still good to stretch his magic and perfect the spells he was learning.

But his focus was off. The Commandos were eager to fight as always, but Harry couldn't keep his attention on the magic he was meant to be casting, which resulted in spells with too little or too much power behind and their unlucky recipients being blasted ass over tea kettle more times than they weren't.

"Maybe let's take a break," Steve suggested after Harry threw Dugan clear across the room with only a leg-locking jinx.

The others grumbled their assent and moved to grab a drink, while Harry went to sit against the wall as he caught his breath and tried to reel in his magic.

When Steve came to crouch at his side he grimaced, sheepish and more than a little apologetic. "I'm distracted."

"Maybe just a little. Everything all right?"

"I had a session with Howard yesterday."

Steve looked intrigued, after Claude he understood too well the implications behind the innocent enough words. "You're okay to be casting today?"

"Maybe not so much as I thought." Harry looked down at his wand, betrayed. "Half of my fuck ups are because I'm distracted, yeah, but the other half…my magic feels off. I know it's because of yesterday, I just don't know how to fix it."

"Can't Stark help with that?"

Harry snorted "He knows about as much as I do. Less even, seeing as he's not a wizard. I should give it a few days, let it settle, then go from there."

"Well if you need to take another trip to Diagon Alley for some more of those books, you know me and Buck'll be the first to volunteer as backup."

Harry laughed and smiled wide at the man. "I wouldn't take anyone else, Captain."

Steve nudged him with a massive shoulder in teasing thanks and Harry made a show of acting as if he'd been bowled. Even if he'd been far from knocked of his feet, the simple action had more weight than Steve probably intended behind it, Harry remembered how small he he'd been before, even now, months later, he was probably still constantly correcting himself to adjust for the changes brought on by the serum.

Maybe if Harry had been able to save Erskine from dying Steve wouldn't be having such a tough time of it, the doctor surely could have given him some invaluable insight on what to expect outside of the obvious increase in strength. There had been so many questions left unanswered after his death, ones every state senator, military bigwig, and semi-involved scientists had made a point to ask Harry, the one closest to Erskine before his murder.

Was Rogers truly superhuman or had he simply been elevated to peak human strength? How severe of an injury could he heal from? What toxins could his body fight off? Was his lifespan extended thanks to the serum? Would he age? Could he die?

All questions Harry had no answers to, it had been infuriating and frustrating, especially so soon after his loss. But maybe now, after finally accepting the foreign magic inside of him, he could answer at least one?

He considered the possibility only idly, but that was as good as a command to his magic and suddenly his vision _focused_ and Steve's tether was there. He'd seen dozens on his way home yesterday, some weak, barely clinging to the desperate grasp they had on the earth, and some firm, so deeply locked in Harry knew it would take a tragedy of epic and unexpected proportions to shake them loose before their time. But in all the tethers he'd seen, there'd been nothing like Steve's.

He wasn't so much as locked in as he was _rooted_ ; burrowed deeper than he could follow as it twisted and winded and latched and _branched_ into a connection so strong he wondered what, if there even was anything at all, that could pry him free. It was unshakeable, unmovable and made Harry desperately wish he was able to see his own, the only tether invisible to this strange sight, if only so he might compare the two.

"What're you two hiding from the rest of us for?"

Bucky had finally grown tired of teasing Dugan over his unfortunate spill and now he was heading in their direction, and Harry, still caught up in the wonder of Steve's longevity, didn't blink away his focus in time to avoid seeing Bucky's.

Abruptly, he was reminded of the secret the other man had shared with him that day in the toilets, after his meltdown over Adalgar. The secret of the labs in a HYDRA facility he'd been locked in and given a serum of his own. There had been moments where Harry doubted if the serum Bucky had been given was on par with Steve's; there was just no way that squinty little creep Zola had accomplished what brilliant Abraham had needed actual magic to do. Especially working out of a half assed, basement lab. But Bucky's tether and the incredible strength in which it latched to life, strength that was unmistakably equal to Steve's, was proof all by itself.

And then he was just behind Steve and their two lines met. Each wound around the other, unreservedly entangling amongst each other, drawing strength from each other in way he'd yet to see any others do. It was baffling and touching and somehow _private_ , even if he was the only one who could see it, even if they had no idea they were even doing it. Harry blinked and forced the focus to unfocus and the tethers were gone.

Bucky, still entirely oblivious came to stop just at Steve's side where he bumped him with his hip without moving his gaze from Harry.

"Dum Dum says you owe him a drink after knocking him on his ass with that blast."

Harry quirked a smile as he shook away the remnants of his surprise. "Bourbon, right?"

"Jim's is all he'll take."

"Well I like cognac. Remy Martin. Let him know he can buy me a bottle in thanks for preparing him for a fight he would have lost otherwise."

That earned him a belly deep laugh and a playful salute. "Yes, sir. I'll let him know."

The suggestion didn't go over too well with Dugan, as Harry knew it wouldn't. The tirade it set him off on was loud and _long._ He didn't even notice when Harry slipped out halfway through; he'd be stuck there all day if he didn't take the chance to get out when presented, besides he had something he wanted to do.

Claude had been released a week after his capture, his memory of that day and all the others after had been carefully wiped away by Harry's wand. Then they'd dumped him two streets over, close enough to where they had found him as to not cause suspicion, but still far enough to keep him from finding them once again.

Adalgar hadn't been so lucky. There'd been no improvement as far as the medical staff could tell, when Harry had gone in and touched his soul he'd done so without the caution and modicum of finesse he'd practiced with Claude, he'd damaged something in the man. Perhaps irreparably. The sleep terrors he'd suffered those first few nights had long since passed, now he was just still, _always still_. Nothing they did got a reaction for him; noise, light, pain, he had retreated so far into himself nothing they did could reach him,

Harry still made it a point to see him when he could. He wasn't sure Adalgar would appreciate it all that much if he was being honest, but no one else came to see the man and since Harry had been the one to put him in that state the least he could do was offer him some kind of stimulation.

"The muggles have done their best, but they say nothing they can do will wake you." Someone in medical had been nice enough to move a chair into the room so Harry wouldn't have to kneel at the bedside every time he came to visit. He moved it flush against the bed and reclined into its hard back, inexplicably weary. "I let them try what they could, it's impressive the medicines they can accomplish without magic. But this is something they say they can't fix, so maybe it's time I intervened? I'm no good at healing, but maybe I can stop at Diagon, see what I can find there that might fix you up."

He pressed down on a wrinkle in the sheets only a few centimeters away from Adalgar's hand, it smoothed under his touch but another popped up just above where it'd been.

"If it doesn't work though…if it doesn't work I'll make sure they continue to care for you, or find someone who can. I won't let them put you down because they've lost interest, I'll continue to hope you'll get better until the day you do or the day you die."

There was no answer of course, there never was, but maybe Adalgar's breath settled in his chest just a little, maybe the frantic pulse Harry could see beating away at his throat calmed just enough. Or maybe it was all just hope.

* * *

Steve and his men, left for Liechtenstein the same day in pursuit of the latest lead on Schmidt and his cohort. They returned, broken, bleeding, half-dead, and their first real fight against Grindelwald's men under their belt.

For weeks after learning of their existence they'd been prepared to face Harry's kind, they'd been _eager_ if only to pit their skills against an opponent so different from anything else they'd seen. But when it came to it, the only difference was the weapon utilized, there was still blood and agony and death. No matter how above those without magic these wizards thought they were they still were entirely the same as them when it came to war. And they lost still, despite their magic and their unwarranted arrogance, the Commandos had learned from Harry and they'd learned well. There had been blood shed and limbs broken, it would take time for them to recover physically and even longer mentally, but they'd survived where the wizards hadn't, they'd walked away where the wizards had fled, and in doing so earned information that would quickly prove to be of value.

"Steve was the one to find it," Bucky said during debrief. Only he, Steve, and Morita were present for it, the rest were recovering in medical to be debriefed at a later day. "They had a room hidden behind magic. Like the kind on the alley…wards? We got that same feeling of wrongness, like we'd forgotten something important and should turn back right away, but he recognized what it was and shook the worst of it off. There were enchantments on it still, things that wouldn't let us even open the door," he smiled, a shadow of mischief finding its way past his exhaustion, "but the walls didn't have any kind of magic on them. We broke through and found all of _that._ "

 _That_ being documents, newspaper clipping, plans, all vital information regarding the movement and tactics of Grindelwald's men, all spread along the center of the table.

"We didn't understand half of what it said," Steve admitted. "But first glance we could tell it was important."

That was what Harry was there for. He'd already begun sorting through the pile, trying to decipher the near illegible scrawl on the closest sheet of parchment. It was a recipe, untitled but he only needed to pick out a few words to understand what it was; lacewing flies stewed for twenty-one days, powdered bicorn horn, fluxweed, knotgrass, _genetic material_.

"This is a potion recipe," he explained. "Polyjuice, it lets you take on the appearance of anyone as long as you've got a bit of their DNA- hair, fingernails, blood even."

"How do you tell they're an imposter?" Phillips asked, worry already making itself known in the dark frown on his lips.

"You don't. Not through any physical means at least, back home we had a bit of problem with polyjuiced figures running around so we got into the habit of asking security questions, something only the real person could know. It only worked though if we knew the person."

"What could the wizards be using it for?"

Harry hummed noncommittally as he continued sifting through the pile, grabbing onto anything that made even some kind of sense. "Give me time to look through all of this and I might be able to say? It's a mess and half of it is random junk from home."

"Can we help at all?" Steve asked.

Harry was quick to push half the pile in his direction. "Sort anything you might understand from everything you don't? I'll read through the latter while you tackle everything else, that'll definitely help this go quicker."

"Gimme one of those stacks." Bucky was already standing to reach for his own pile of papers, and Harry was only too happy to oblige.

Phillips and Peggy left to speak with the remaining Commandos, while Harry, Steve, Bucky, and Morita set in on the daunting task of sorting through the documents that easily blanketed the table five times over.

A good amount of it was random junk, just like Harry had said; broom adverts ripped from magazines, correspondence to and from family members, personal notes on everything from the best wand polishes to potions to fight off hair loss. But there were still plenty of documents of interest, and while most of it wasn't dated, enough was to give them a timeline of Grindelwald's movement.

"There's a lot on the tesseract here," Steve said some time into their search. "You were right about this being Grindelwald's play, same as Schmidt's."

"Supervillains are never very unique in their goals," Harry derided, eyes glued to a sheet of parchment he was sure had been enchanted to be as unintelligible as it was. "They want the biggest, shiniest toy and they want to destroy the world with it. They're depressingly easy to predict."

"You've had some experience with supervillains then?"

Harry looked up just long enough to offer Morita a rueful smile. "You'd be surprised."

The parchment wasn't enchanted, he finally decided, its writer just had shit handwriting and an obsession with the kneazles he'd left behind. It joined the quidditch adverts in the pile of waste.

It took _hours_ to work through everything, even with two supersoldiers and a semi-trained wizard the process was slow and tedious. Every potion recipe, coded letter, agent dossier, and sloppily drawn blueprint was looked over, passed around, and commented on until finally they understood the one big plot it all came together to be.

"There's a HYDRA base in Italy," Steve explained to Phillips, Peggy, and the remaining Commandos who'd been dragged from medical earlier than they probably should have been, "somewhere around the Ligurian Alps. It's very well hidden and is where a scientist by the name of Vsevolod Kuznetsov does his work."

"I met him a few times in Azzano," Bucky said, "he and Zola were best pals even though Kuznetsov worked primarily on the weapons."

"The _tesseract powered weapons_ ," Steve stressed. "The wizards believe he's seen the cube, they think he could tell them where to find it."

"They're going to hit his base then, and get its location out of him?" Peggy guessed.

"And once they do, they're going to use his DNA and their polyjuice potion to get to it."

"Do you think we should let them?"

There was a beat of confused silence, then Peggy shook her head, leveling Dugan, the speaker of that controversial question, with a look slack with disbelief. "What if we did _what_?"

He shrugged, unmoved by the reception his question had received. "There were three wizards today. _Only three wizards_ , who were half asleep and caught by surprise and they still put up a hell of a fight. We have a supersoldier on our side and we barely came out of that fight alive. Imagine an army of them, marching against Schmidt's stronghold, surprise on _their_ side this time. They might very well do what we haven't yet."

"Except when they win they get the cube and now we're fighting an enemy that could be worse than Red Skull and his guys," Bucky pointed out.

"Not if we get it first."

Steve nodded, of course the first to understand where Dugan was trying to lead them. "Use the wizards as a distraction and grab the cube while HYDRA is occupied fighting them."

Dugan nodded, satisfied. "Maybe the wizards win, maybe HYDRA, or maybe we'll get lucky and they wipe each other out. But no matter how the fight ends, we'll be the ones to have won."

Peggy hummed contemplatively "It's a risk…" she looked to Harry, the one who knew the wizards and what they were capable of the best. "Could it work?"

He sat and considered for a moment, remembering his own war and the way Voldemort had fought, then the little he'd learned of Grindelwald.

"It could," he finally said, "if it weren't for one thing. Magic has made wizards cowards. They don't do frontal assault, not if it can be avoided; they'll only send a few and they'll go in quietly, they'll snatch the Tesseract from Schmidt without him even being aware they were there."

"We'll sabotage their plan then." Dugan countered, not willing to see his idea fall to ruin so quickly. "Find some way to get them caught in the act and force them to fight."

"You could," Harry allowed, "but then their element of surprise would be gone. Once the first of them dies they'll flee, same as they did with you."

"Take the wizards out of the equation then," Steve decided. "They've got us this far, but we don't need them any longer."

Phillips grunted, intrigued despite himself. "Explain."

"We get to the base before them and we grab Kuznetsov. He'll tell _us_ where to find the tesseract before the wizards and we'll get it ourselves."

Stated as simply as that, none of them could think of a reason why it wouldn't work. Sure none of them were particularly thrilled with the idea of hitting Schmidt at home, they preferred Dugan's plan where they allowed the wizards to lay down their lives fighting HYDRA while they slipped in quiet and grabbed what they needed. But a full out assault on Schmidt's base had always been the end game no need to try and change it up now.

"When was the attack on Kuznetsov meant to take place?" Peggy inquired.

"We were able to narrow it down to three or four days from now, around twenty-one hundred hours, Italy's time. They've been tracking Kuznetsov's schedule, he spends a few hours around then in his lab, alone."

"The perfect time to hit." Phillips scrubbed a hand over his eyes, taking a moment to think. "We've got a camp in France, about a day's hike away from where your guy is holing up. We'll set up there, figure out how to get you in and out once we've got boots on the ground."

Steve nodded in understanding. "How soon will we be heading out?"

"The very minute I can get transport arranged. Bunk here tonight and be prepared to leave on a moment's notice, we're working with no time at all."

* * *

Phillips didn't give Harry an option on whether or not he wanted to join them in their expedition to France. These were his people the Commandos were preparing to go up against, the colonel needed to have him close at hand in the event anything went wrong.

Harry didn't appreciate being given no choice at all, but when the charter plane Phillips had managed to secure on such short notice took off only a few minutes past three in the morning, he was still aboard. Exhausted and grumpy, but _there._

But then they touched down and his disgruntlement for being forced to come along shifted to full out resentment.

The camp was a _hive_ of death _._ Shades stalked everywhere, dressed in the combat gear they'd died in, entire limbs missing and holes blown through their heads. And there were reapers. Death's chosen ignored the already departed, they'd made their efforts when they'd first arrived, but these men were too damaged by the trauma of their deaths to even desire the promise of peace on the other side that they were offered. So the reapers focused on the living; dogging their steps, lingering just outside the entrance to the infirmary, hoisting themselves into the back of the vehicles that carted men by the dozens back out into the trenches. It was overwhelming the desolation that clung to the place. Whoever said there was peace and beauty in death had never seen a place like this.

But then Steve arrived and a palpable shift in the air occurred. The last time Harry had been in a camp with him he'd been dressed in his garish USO outfit, singing along with a choir of perfectly coifed women. The men had _hated_ him, Harry had heard a tale or two of rotten tomatoes and bared arse cheeks during his one and only performance. But the men here looked to the supersoldier with awe, veneration, _hope_.

Steve wasn't used to, it was evident in the uneasy slope of his shoulders that the eyes that locked on him from the moment he stepped from the plane to the moment he ducked into his tent weren't something he'd ever be comfortable with.

Harry was just glad that for once he wasn't the focus of that unnerving adoration.

He was assigned a tent with Falsworth, who was an easy enough companion and one Harry had built rapport with through virtue of sharing a home country. Neither of them wasted much time before choosing a side of the tent to roll out their cots and collapsing on the flimsy things instantly, desperate to regain some of the sleep lost thanks to the late-night flight. And they remained there until Dugan came tearing in hours later, admonishing them for missing lunch but committed to making sure they didn't skip out on their evening meal.

"You've been rubbing elbows with moneybags Stark too long," the ginger said, directing a devious grin Harry's way, "I've been waiting to see you try to live off our rations."

Harry snorted. The joke was on him, he'd lived in a cupboard and survived off of stale bread and moldy cheese for the first half of his life, he would eat _anything._

"Looks like corned beef and veg hash today."

Harry accepted his metal tray of rations without much fuss, even if the lot of it looked like something a hippogriff had spat up. The beef and veg hash had an interesting texture to it and of course he'd been handed a mug of coffee, he could barely stand the taste of it but the US troops seemed to live off the stuff. When he settled in at the table the Commandos had commandeered, he slid the cup over to Bucky who'd already finished his own and was trying to cajole a bit from an unwavering Steve.

He hid a smile at the sergeant's pleased murmurs behind a mouthful of his hash, and maybe he should have gone slower on his first bite because the concoction was _thick_. There wasn't much flavor to it, even with the corned beef mixed in, but he could survive that, it was the texture that got him. Whatever filler the kitchen had added to round the dish out made each bite feel like a dense, cakey mess.

Dugan was watching him over his own plate with something close to delight. "How's it treating you?"

"I've had beans flavored to taste like actual vomit and earwax," Harry took a pointed bite of his admittedly disgusting dinner, "this is nothing in comparison."

"Spoilsport."

Harry laughed and bent over his tray to focus on shoveling down the rest of the hash before it got cold, how it might taste then made him shudder just to consider. It was a tough job, one he almost lost when he nearly choked on an undercooked carrot, but even Aunt Petunia would be impressed with his tenacity and soon enough he was down to the hard little biscuits dipped in some off brand chocolate to give them a bit of sweet. A reward he supposed, for his suffering.

It was while he was breaking a tooth on the biscuits, recovering from the ordeal that was his dinner, that a group of men approached the canteen. They looked the same as the rest of the weary soldiers coming and going for their evening meals, but then the one at the center with his pale hair caught Harry's eye and he sat straight in his seat. He frowned and forced himself to look again, but what he thought he saw hadn't changed, he _knew_ him. He was out of his seat in an instant.

"Harry? Where are you going?"

Harry waved absently at Steve, eyes still trained on… _yes_ , it was him. "Ives!"

The man turned, startled, confused, then he saw Harry and only looked shocked. "Flash, is that you?"

Harry stumbled to his side and didn't even think before sweeping him into a hug. The gesture was returned almost immediately and a bit of tension he didn't even know he'd been carrying all this time finally loosened.

"How are you here? _Why_ are you here." Ives released him and looked down with eyes wide in confusion. "You said you weren't going into the fight. You were supposed to be in London."

Harry took a moment to answer, too busy cataloguing all of the changes in his friend's face. That bit of red tint in his hair was nearly gone, making it near as pale as Malfoy's had been-would be, he'd always kept his face neat and smooth, but now something that could almost be a _beard_ covered his chin and crawled up his cheeks and there was a bit of dirt on his forehead.

"I wasn't," he said, eventually shaking himself from his scrutiny. "I mean I'm _not_. I'm here consulting on an op my team's headed on tomorrow. They're going a bit further out but our CO thought it be best to camp here."

That didn't seem to clear anything up for Ives. "The only team that's here and _not_ going straight to the front is…." He glanced over Harry's shoulder, confusion finally shifting to baffled understanding as he took in the men Harry had just left and who he didn't have to look over at to know were making no attempts at hiding their curious and _blatant_ staring. "Flash, are you with _Captain America_?"

"Well, I mean I travelled with them. I'm not exactly with them, we're hardly even colleagues, or anything really. I'm just dragged along to wherever they need me in case they need someone to consult-"

"Hush."

"Sorry."

Ives nodded to his men who'd moved on to join the line for food, then steered Harry to the nearest empty table. "Now explain it to me."

"We work for the same organization," Harry began.

"Yeah, I remember. The SSR?"

"Right. I mostly do development, assisting in things like building the defenses against HYDRA's weapons and such. But there are…certain areas of study I'm well read in that not many else at the SSR are, so sometimes I'm brought in on jobs to offer insight where they might need it."

"And that includes being brought to the fight?"

"Well, like I said, the fight's a bit further out, but they want me as close as possible in case of…complications."

Ives didn't seem at all impressed by that. "Complications?"

Harry shrugged.

"Let me guess, it's classified?"

"Sorry."

He laughed but there was no displeasure behind the sound. "Don't be kid, I'm just glad you're safe. Sounds like you're doing good work."

"Hardly. Most of the time we spend blowing things up."

"Then our jobs are a lot more alike than I thought."

Harry grinned, he didn't realize how much he'd missed Ives until he was reminded what it was like being with him. "And you? On the way to finishing this fight like we talked about?"

"Getting there maybe." Ives shrugged bashfully. "I'm sergeant now."

"Sergeant!" Harry beamed. "That's fantastic. Bucky's sergeant too, you're just like him."

"Oh, yeah. I'll bet we're just alike."

"Would you like to meet them?" Harry glanced over, most of the Commandos were wrapping up their meals, it was only Steve and Bucky who were still looking over every now and then. Harry wondered if they could hear the conversation over the din of the mess hall. "They're great, I think you'd get along just fine."

"I mean…"

Harry tried to hide how much he wanted him to say yes. There was no telling what the next few days would look like for either of them, he wanted to spend as much time catching up with him as possible.

"Geez, kid, tone down the eyes, will you? Of course I'll meet your famous friends."

"They're no more famous than I am."

Which, okay, that wasn't saying much.

Harry slid back into his seat at the Commandos' table without much pomp then nudged Bucky over until there was room for Ives to sit on the end of the bench. "This is Ives," he said plainly. "We're friends, from home."

Steve perked up right away. "Home? You from New York too?"

Ives dipped his head in a nervous nod. "Yessir. Born in Chelsea, raised there too, didn't leave 'till I got my draft."

"Manhattan's nice. We were right over in Brooklyn Heights." A mischievous shine Harry was finding more and more easy to spot lit up in Steve's eyes. "Great neighborhood."

Ives' brow dropped just a hair, he looked to Harry who shrugged, then backed to Steve who looked entirely too innocent. "It was…colorful."

Bucky rolled his eyes even while he laughed. "Ignore him," he said, moving to block Steve, who made a noise like a _squawk_ in protest, with his head. "His humor's shit. I'm Bucky."

"The sergeant, yeah, apparently we're just alike."

"Shut up," Harry muttered and reached for his tray, he still had two biscuits left and they'd _almost_ been edible, they might be the closest thing he'd get to good food while here so he may as well enjoy them. But when he dragged it closer it was empty and Dugan was pointedly not looking in his direction.

He tried not to let his displeasure at the missing biscuits show, but he'd choked through that awful hash and he didn't even get dessert. It was ridiculous how disappointed he actually found himself.

"Oh, look what you've done," Dernier said, his words thick with his accent. "He looks so sad."

"Shut your hole, Frenchie," Dugan muttered at the same time Harry protested that, "This is just my face!"

But then Jones reached over and dropped a few of his own biscuits onto Harry's plate, and maybe what was "just his face" perked up a _little_.

"What does that mean?" Bucky pressed once the minor crisis had been averted. "We're just alike?"

"We share a rank and that's all," Ives shrugged. "That was enough for Flash though."

"Flash?" It didn't take much to guess who Ives was referring to, but Bucky was sure the story behind that nickname was a great source of amusement, one Harry might never share if the look on his face was anything to go by. He couldn't pass up the chance to hear it now.

"He hasn't said?" A slow smile was beginning to spread across Ives' face and Harry groaned. "He got the name thanks to how we met. He swept in and saved me from the sort of no good fellas who'd take a guy on three to one, like my own Flash Gordon."

Bucky looked delighted. "You two met in a fight?"

Ives nodded. "Wasn't much of a fight once he showed up. He broke one guy's ankle and knocked the other over the head with a trash lid, they were down before they even noticed he was there."

Dugan shook his head, refusing to believe Ives' tale. "I can't see that happening, not with him."

Harry frowned in mock offense. "Why's that? Because I'm not built like the sort of man whose diet consists only of protein and Schlitz? I've told you before, I'm _scrappy_."

"Well how come we ain't ever seen it then?"

"You have." Harry leveled him with a challenging glare. "Or has that bruise on your backside faded already? You need another to remind you?"

The others hooted at Dugan who scowled into his by then congealed hash. There wasn't anything he could say to _that_.

Harry sat back with a smile, satisfied that he'd settled that. "But I really only got those two guys because they were surprised. Ives put up the real fight, he kept them all back before I showed up and once I did he got the biggest one in a chokehold. He was out in seconds."

Bucky knocked his shoulder into Steve's. "Don't that sound familiar?"

"Yeah," Steve snorted, "only I never _won_."

Ives looked surprised. "You got into a lot of fights?"

The Commandos all groaned, already worn out by the turn the conversation had taken and it had barely even started. "Not a single one of their stories from before joining does not include a fight," Gabe confided to Ives.

"That's not true," Steve protested. "The one with the baseball games we used to start up with the kids on our block instead of going to Sunday mass-"

"Always ended with you scrapping with the team captain who refused to pick you," Morita said.

"Okay then remember the one with the dog?"

Falsworth nodded. "The one you adopted for the day after fighting the group of kids who were throwing rocks at it?"

"I've told you about the pies Mrs. Eskenazi used to make me."

"Stevie," Bucky cut in, a gentle reminder in his voice, "she only made you those 'cuz she felt sorry you were getting beat up all the time for yelling at the kids who harassed her on her trips back from the grocer."

"Well I didn't _tell_ them that part."

"So you did fight a lot," Ives concluded.

"No," Bucky corrected. "He got _beat up_ a lot, it was me doing the fighting."

Steve rolled his eyes and responded with sarcasm heavy on his tongue. "Thanks, Buck."

"Well, you don't look like you'd lose too many fights now, Captain."

"The army did me some good."

"I'll say it did." Ives turned to Harry before Steve or any of the others could respond. "Did you say for how long you'd be camping with us?"

Harry shook his head. "Maybe a week? Maybe more. Depends on how quickly these men can do their jobs."

Ives nodded his understanding. "I have to meet with some of my men tonight, soon as a matter of fact, but we're not meant to go back out to the fight for another few days. Find me before then?"

Once Harry promised to do exactly that, Ives stood to leave. "It was good meeting you all," he told the Commandos. "Good luck on whatever you came here to do. I'll see you soon, Flash."

"He was nice," Steve said, a happy little smile on his face.

"I didn't think you knew anyone outside of us," Bucky teased.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm not a complete shut in. Or at least I wasn't, before I joined in with you lot." Harry pushed his tray away, finally empty of the debatably edible rations. "You're meant to head out tomorrow? Did Phillips want one last debrief tonight?"

"No, our books are open for this evening," Falsworth said.

"So keeping with tradition," Dugan beamed. "I brought an old friend."

The men groaned when, a half full bottle of clear liquor was produced from a bag at his feet.

"What have we got this time?" Morita asked. "More of your own brew?"

"No, our livers are safe boys," Bucky said, squinting at the bottle and its pale label. "It's only Seagram's."

"Gin," Dernier spat, disgusted by his American comrades' poor taste in drink. "I'd rather the home brew."

"It'll get you sloshed same as any of the other fancy shit you and yours drink, Frenchie," Dugan teased. "But for our guest," here he looked to Harry who offered him a look of deep wariness in return, "I got something special."

Harry accepted the second bottle to come from the bag cautiously; it was heavy, a deep sea-glass green, and already half empty, but when he read the label he couldn't help the wide grin that rose almost immediately. "Remy Martin. How'd you get this? _Where_ did you get this, it's terribly expensive isn't it?"

"When you've got a face as charming as mine, there's not much you can't get."

"You'll share, yes?" Dernier near pleaded. "I cannot think of the last time I'd had a drink so smooth."

"I don't think I could handle this all by myself."

And they all knew that to be the truth, there was no way Harry would manage to make even a dent in the bottle without sharing at least some.

"We won't be able to get away with setting up around a fire tonight," Bucky said once that was settled. "But I know for a fact Steve's got a tent near as big as our place back home and that's just as good in my books."

"You can't just offer up my quarters, Buck," Steve tried to protest but it was evident he was only putting up a fight for the fun of it.

"It's in the spirit of tradition. Don't be a square."

* * *

Harry claimed half of an army issued mug of Remy for himself then let the rest of the bottle go to the wolves. It was done in under an hour and the Commandos were _gone_ , but they hardly even slurred and Harry didn't see a single one of them fall over. They were drunk, obviously so, but still almost… _neat_ about it.

He'd never met a group of men so capable of getting so completely wasted and retain some sense of normalcy. The one night he'd spent with Ives and his crew had been entertaining but messy, he remembered the dancing too similar to upright sex and raunchy songs that echoed _far_ in the empty streets.

Even Howard, who was never far from a finger or two of whiskey, showed effects after a cup too many. But the Commandos destroyed his entire bottle and the gin Dernier had been so quick to scorn and all they had to show for it were redder cheeks than normal and a sudden eagerness to share every personal anecdote in their arsenals.

"They've been doing this since we formed," Bucky confided, careful not to disrupt Falsworth's recollections of his more exciting schooldays. "Probably even earlier. The night before any fight you'll find us in a circle at least one bottle being passed around."

"It doesn't affect them in a fight?" Harry wondered.

"Thought it might be a problem the first few times," Steve said. "But these guys are old hats at shaking off the worst of the drink in a few hours. You won't even be able to tell they put away near two bottles in the morning."

"I wonder between your guys and Howard who has the better tolerance."

"Let's make it through this fight and maybe we'll find out."

The reminder of what was coming once morning came around filled Harry with trepidation _._ Because this was _big_. They were going after the man who could bring them straight to Schmidt's door. Steve and his team were good, he never doubted that, but the Red Skull would be holed up in nothing short of a fortress. To get to him might cost some of them their lives.

"Phillips is hoping to find reason for you to fight."

Harry frowned, not angry at Steve for bringing the matter up, only frustrated in general at the predicaments he always landed himself into.

"I know."

Of course he knew. Phillips and even Peggy had been wanting to get him on the field since they'd seen the destruction his magic was capable of.

When he was with Erskine, researching potions and mediating purchases of magical flora, they hadn't seen the use of it; magic was exciting and new and useful in terms of the serum, but nothing they could utilize themselves. It was only after Adalgar was a drooling mess and the Commandos were learning how to duck eviscerating hexes that they understood the power they were associated with and realized the devastation it would cause their enemies.

Harry didn't blame them for wanting it, they were here to win a war, by _any means necessary_ , not coddle his shaky morals. And maybe if he'd been someone else, someone free from his own brand of issues he might have said to hell with the Statute and lent his wand and his magic to their cause. But he wasn't, he couldn't, because he had problems of his own that needed sorting, and as unmotivated as he'd been in both mundane and magical school, he still knew the outcome of this war. They didn't need him, they never did; the body count might be different, the timeline a few days or weeks or months off, the number of Commandos to make it through alive might vary, but they would win. Without him.

"You're set in your decision not to fight and we'll at least respect that."

It wasn't lost on Harry, how incredible it was hearing something like that from Steve Rogers, the man who couldn't back down from a fight even when he was a head shorter than just about every man and plagued with innumerable health defects.

"But if we needed it, if things got out of hand…"

"I'd be there."

Perhaps that was the only way he'd break his no-intervention decree, if these men he'd grown so fond of so quickly were facing men from his own world and knew they had no chance of getting out alive. There was no saying how that would end, his array of offensive spells had broadened since he'd started his self-study. He could mutilate a dummy like no one's business, but it was different in a real fight against real men who _fought back_. But if anything he'd make a big enough distraction to give the real strategic geniuses a chance to figure themselves out of the hole they'd wound up in.

Steve smiled, pleased with the sincerity behind his promise, but there was something he still wondered. "You haven't had any more trouble with your spells? The effects of what you did with Howard have passed?"

Harry shrugged. As far as he could tell, they had. He hadn't had much reason to cast in the days between his last (disastrous) spar with the Commandos and winding up here, but there'd been no other reactions from his magic. He was seeing plenty of shades still and the tethers were always there if he looked hard enough, but that was tame in comparison to what had happened the first time they'd attempted the procedure.

"It'll work with me in a pinch. We just needed time to settle."

"Did you ever talk to Howard about it?"

"I never got the chance." Harry waved away his concern easily. "I know what he would have said though and it's exactly what I _just did_. We're pushing my magic further and quicker than it would be able to on my own, but it and I just need time to adjust to the changes."

"And you've adjusted?"

"As well as I can. But this is only temporary." Right after Claude, Harry had explained to both Steve and Bucky the issue of his dual magics in the simplest terms he could manage. He'd been just vague enough where they understood that he was struggling with a foreign magic trying to alter what he'd been born with, without tipping them off on the exact nature of said foreign magic. "We're getting closer, once I'm home I'll be rid of it and _all_ of the side effects will be gone."

His words had the exact opposite effect he'd been hoping for, neither Steve nor Bucky relaxed at his attempt at reassurance.

"I still don't get what that means," Bucky said. "You're stretching your magic but for _what_? How will it get you home?"

Harry took his bottom lip between his teeth as he tried to puzzle out the easiest explanation. "It's more than just distance I have to cross to get home. I need power, a lot of it, to get there. So we're growing what I have."

"And you're close now?"

"Clos _er_. A few more months maybe."

"Then you'll be home."

Harry was struck by how _unhappy_ Steve sounded. Both he and Bucky were doing well to keep their expressions clear, but he could still sense the undercurrent of glumness they both carried.

"I suppose since it's taking so much power just to get back, it won't be so easy to pay Brooklyn a visit or two."

"No. Probably not." He had to look down at the mostly untouched mug in his hand for a moment, because wow that hurt worse than it should have. "You know, when I got here I swore not to get attached? To just keep to myself and find a way home alone. But then Erskine happened, then Peggy, then Howard, and _you all_. I fucked that one right up. I miss my friends and my home, but I'll miss you all now, once I'm back."

"We didn't want to make it harder…"

"No, I'm not upset. I'm glad I couldn't keep to my promise."

Bucky held up his own full mug. "Toast then, to broken promises."

And Harry laughed and knocked his mug into Bucky's and held it there until Steve joined them with his own. "To broken promises."

* * *

The Commandos left early the next morning, they had nearly a full day's hike to Kuznetsov's base camp ahead of them, and just as Steve had said, not a single one of them showed sign of too much to drink from the night before. It was impressive and really made him wonder how a faceoff against Howard and his liver of steel might end up.

Harry took advantage of not being an actual part of the combat unit to sleep in a little later, though he was still up much earlier than he'd ever been during his Hogwarts' days. The stir of camp was just too much to sleep through.

He met Ives for lunch, who introduced him to his unit, all of whom wanted to know every detail about what it was like to work with Captain America. It was a relief to break away from the questions and the curiosities to walk through camp alone with Ives.

"Elton shipped out a week after I did. Last I heard he's somewhere in Honduras, acting as a translator, lucky bastard."

"He speaks… _Hondurian?"_

"Spanish, Flash," Ives snorted. "And yeah, he was always real good with languages. I'm glad he's found a use for that here, especially one that keeps him further from the fighting."

"But you wish it was you, right?"

"Of course, but the only skill I've got is putting on face and last I checked the US army wasn't looking for queers."

"Their loss. I've seen you in a dress, flash them those legs and the Nazi's would be all but useless."

Ives' cackle of laughter did a good job masking the distant rumble of mortar shells for a few seconds. "Wow, I can't believe how much I missed you."

"Yeah, well you're keeping busy. Probably hard to miss anything when you're out there." Harry's head tilted in the direction of the crackling gunfire of the fight.

"That's actually when it's easiest."

"Harry."

Both men slid to a stop and turned to Peggy, lovely as ever even with mud up to her shins and her usual burst of bright lip color nowhere in sight. She crossed the distance between them in a quick few steps and, after sparing Ives a curious look, turned her attention to Harry. "They'll be there by sunset. Would you like to sit in with us while we wait for any updates?"

Harry glanced up at the sky, the day had gone fast, it was probably another hour before the sun was down. "Sure. Phillips won't mind?"

"He was the one to suggest it actually."

Harry rolled his eyes, of course he was, as manipulative as Dumbledore that man was. But it didn't take away from the fact that he _did_ want to be there whenever the Commandos checked in, so he'd put his stubborn pride aside for the moment.

He looked over to Ives who'd been tracking the conversation in silent curiosity. "Will you be free later this evening?"

"Always for you, Flash."

"I'll come looking for you then. I want to hear more about Elton and Honduras."

"I won't go far."

Peggy waited until they were well across camp before speaking again. "Friend of yours?"

"He is, actually. I've known him longer than I've known you, even. He's from New York."

"He's handsome."

"Yeah?" Harry grinned at the woman. "I could put in a good word if you'd like."

"Oh, no need."

She ducked into Phillip's tent and he was quick to follow. The colonel was seated behind his desk as usual, a long range radio already set up and transmitting static.

"All right, colonel," Peggy made herself comfortable in the seat closest to the radio. "Sitrep?"

* * *

Their usual sort of mission was loud, bright, _chaotic_ with gunfire that cast burning light across their faces and across the red and blue paint of Rogers' shield as it ricocheted through corridors and into skulls. Their directive was rarely to go in silently, their team was after all led by a walking American flag who tossed about a painted disk and included a hulking ginger whose standard uniform was a bowler hat and a shotgun and a Frenchman with a penchant for explosives. Covert ops weren't where they excelled.

But they needed to get to Kuznetsov and they needed to get their _quietly_ , so Barnes took point and led them through the poorly lit halls to where intel said Kuznetsov would be.

 _Should_ be.

He wasn't.

He took dinner at this time, alone in his labs where he could carry on working while he ate. But none of his machines were running, their screens were dark, and the lab and each of its antechambers were deserted.

"We early or something?" Gabe asked, voice purposely hushed in the near silence of the lab.

Steve checked the little watch he kept tucked in the pouch of his utility belt. "Right on time actually. Kuznetsov's usually halfway through his meal by now."

"Maybe he's running behind schedule," Bucky reasoned. "Something's holding him up in mess. It would be just our luck that today is the _one day_ his routine doesn't go like clockwork, but it doesn't have to be anything wrong."

"So we wait for him?"

Steve shook his head, already recalculating, adjusting to this shift in plans. "Intel says if he's not taking his meal here, he'll be in his rooms. That's two floors up. Dernier, Morita, you'll stay here, just in case he shows up, we'll go look for him there."

It was Falsworth who asked the question they were all wondering. "And if he's not in his rooms?"

"Then we search the whole building, top to bottom. This is our one shot at getting Kuznetsov, if the wizards get that location out of him the tesseract is as good as theirs."

To get to the upper levels, they had to go deeper into the building first, and the further they went, the more populated it got. They couldn't draw their guns, they couldn't risk the noise, so they broke necks where they could, dug knives between ribs and spinal cords where they couldn't. When they made it two floors up their hands were sticky with blood but the alarm had yet to sound.

"He's corridor 9D," Falsworth murmured, consulting the layout of the building, marked with every important location. "Only door on the left wall."

They made it as far as 9C before Steve was struck with the unshakeable certainty that the men he'd left in the lab were in danger. That wing of the building had been nearly deserted when they'd left, most HYDRA agents knew well enough to steer clear of Kuznetsov's labs, but what if the man himself had shown up and discovered Morita and Dernier waiting for him? Or what if they'd gotten into something they weren't supposed to? Dernier loved his explosives, was it too much to hope he wasn't already elbow deep in whatever experimental weapons Kuznetsov was known for manufacturing? For the good of the job, he should go check on them, turn back and-

Bucky's hand curled into a vice around Steve's wrist, stopping him from turning and heading back to the lab.

"Feel familiar?" He whispered, his face was pale and his lips drawn, but his gaze was locked steady on Steve. "Wards. There are wizards here."

And once he said it, Steve realized he recognized the feeling, same as when he'd gone to the alley with Harry and same as when they'd found the intel that landed them here, on this mission, from another HYDRA base similarly infested with wizards.

"They weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow," he hissed, as he herded the remaining Commandos further from the corridor. Now that he knew where the feeling of foreboding urgency was coming from, it was easier for him to ignore, and Bucky had shaken off the wards' effects before even him, but the others were taking a second longer to come back to themselves. Whether it was because they'd never experienced it the way he and Bucky had or for some other reason he didn't have the time to consider he wasn't sure, but he needed to get them a safe distance from the magical barriers before they gave away their presence.

"Maybe what we read was wrong, or maybe they decided to move their plan up a few days after our last hit. Dugan _stay still_." Bucky wrestled the ginger to a halt before he could make a break for the staircase. "What you're feeling is not real. It's magic, trying to keep you away because down that hall is our target. Shake it off."

"You say that like it's easy," Dugan grunted, teeth gritted in concentration.

Bucky huffed a sigh. "We don't have time to try and walk them through the wards," he said, "there's no telling how long they've been in there, if they get that information from Kuznetsov this'll all have been for nothing."

Steve offered him an incredulous frown in response. "So we go in alone? We don't even know how many are in there."

"Doesn't matter. We'll slip in quick, take them out all at once." He reached for Falsworth and the smoke cannisters he kept on his belt.

"Kuznetsov could get killed with the rest of them."

"I'd rather him dead than squealing to the enemy."

Steve could already hear the cursing out Phillips was going to lay on him once they made it back, but he could recognize the logic in Bucky's suggestion even when he didn't want to, and they didn't have time at all to consider another course of action.

"All right. Dugan, Jones, Falsworth, post up here, keep watch and make sure no one gets out. I'm giving us five minutes, if we're not out by then you better dig deep and break past those wards or find us some backup."

None of the men looked happy, but they murmured their understanding of their Captain's orders and took up position on either end of the hall. They had a job to do, they could get on him and Barnes for their recklessness when it was through.

They first step through the wards was nauseating, the struggle to differentiate with what they knew and what the magic was trying to tell them was one hard fought, but each step after was easier, and soon enough they were through.

Once they were on the other side, the screaming started.

"They must have had some kind of silencing spell up with the wards," Bucky guessed. "Wouldn't want the whole compound coming down on them once they got started on him."

Steve winced. "Geez, I feel for the guy, but it's still a good sign for us. He hasn't given anything up just yet."

The hall just outside Kuznetsov's rooms was empty, the wizards had been so certain of the infallibility of their wards they hadn't even set up guards outside.

That had been their first mistake.

Their second was neglecting to even shut the door behind them.

"Arrogant," Steve murmured to Bucky, nearly inaudible over the sound of Kuznetsov's agony.

"Sloppy," was the equally silent response.

Inside the room, the man they'd come for was writhing on the plush carpeted floor, three wizards were standing over him and another was honest to god lounging in an armchair to the far left of the room as if this were just another Tuesday evening. There were no visible wounds, no blood or broken bones for them to see, but the way Kuznetsov screamed was fervently agonized, the product of a Cruciatus if they had to guess. And all the while, the wizards barked at him in his mother tongue. Only one word was recognizable in the garble of Russian, but it was the only word that mattered: _tesseract._

It was too bad Kuznetsov was too busy wailing to offer a coherent answer.

He shouldn't have sympathy for the man, Kuznetsov was _HYDRA_ , but the way Harry had described the Cruciatus, its all-encompassing nature, how there was no sense other than pain, and the way the man _screamed…_ Steve wasn't sure he could wish that kind of torture on even _Schmidt_.

And Bucky seemed to be of the same mind, he was rolling the cannister across his palm, an impatient tick in his jaw. "Tell me when."

Steve didn't see any reason to keep him waiting. "Whenever."

Kuznetsov's screams were too loud and the wizards too distracted for the gentle scrape of a pin being released to register. It was only when the grenade rolled to a stop against the closest wizard's foot did any of them take notice to the fact that they were no longer alone.

But then it went off with a _fwoosh_ and smoke was flooding the room.

" _Zasada_." The wizard taking a rest in the armchair was on his feet in a moment. " _Ambush._ At the door."

Four wands turned on them and then the thick gray smoke still flooding from the cannister was suddenly lit with the multi-colored hues of spells intent on killing them. Luckily Steve's shield was great for deflecting most curses, so while he provided cover Bucky took aim and shot a clean hole through the head of one of Kuznetsov's interrogators. The others dove for cover immediately after, but one was too slow and caught a disc of red and blue vibranium to the throat for his trouble while another earned a bullet to the chest.

Kuznetsov himself was left in the center of the floor, forgotten in the face of a new foe, but still so obviously out of it from the curse there wouldn't be any fear of him going anywhere for a while.

"I'll lay down cover fire to keep the asshole behind the armchair busy if you want to get the one hiding under the desk," Bucky suggested, already aiming his rifle in the direction of the overturned armchair.

"Once I take his spot under the desk I should have an angle on the one behind the chair," Steve agreed. "If he tries to move it'll be right into your line of fire so be ready."

"You forget who you're talking to."

At the first burst of gunfire, Steve was leaping into the doorway, over Kuznetsov, and around the wide set, mahogany desk that wizard number three was hiding. He slid behind the man's cover with little finesse, but before he could even raise his wand Steve was cracking his head against one of the desk's unyielding panels. The body hit the ground and he was already drawing his sidearm and craning around the desk to where he could just see the fourth and final wizard.

The first shot went wide, the angle he was aiming from was awkward and uncomfortable and the wizard was doing his best to flatten himself against the chair.

"Come on Steve, don't play with your food!" Bucky chastised from the doorway.

The second shot was aimed true, it would get his mark in the center of his forehead, minimal mess, he felt that with a quiet confidence only achieved in the middle of a fight. But a fraction of a second before it hit, the wizard shouted out; one word muffled by distance and uttered in Russian and then there was a vortex of light, blue and bright and blinding, and he was gone.

The bullet lodged in the upholstery right behind where his head had only just been and Steve cursed.

"He gone?" Bucky asked, though he was wise enough not to leave cover just yet.

Steve kept low to the ground as he crept over to where the wizard had just been, checking behind and around the toppled armchair just to be sure he was really gone and not using magic to trick their eyes.

"He's gone, ran just like Harry said he would. Room's clear."

"Hall's clear. Our guy still alive?"

Steve kicked at Kuznetsov's side, rolling him onto his back. He'd fallen out of consciousness sometime during the last few minutes of the fight, finally too exhausted and flat out terrified to cling to awareness any longer.

"Still alive," he concluded when he caught the rise and fall of his breath.

"Grab him and let's go then. It's been five minutes, the guys'll be gearing up to grab backup by now."

Kuznetsov went over Steve's shoulder and then they were back out in the hall, heading back from where they came. And when they rounded the corner and found 9C occupied by their entire team, the two they'd left down in the labs included, Bucky scoffed.

"Frenchie and Morita aren't _backup_." He derided. "How were they supposed to get past those wards if you guys couldn't?"

Falsworth spared him one of those looks full of Englishmen arrogance that he _hated_. "Who said anything about getting through the wards? We were going to blow through the walls and storm them from behind."

"Great plan." Steve hefted Kuznetsov on his shoulders, more for show than anything else, the man was overweight sure but they'd all seen the captain run drills with three times the weight on his back without once breaking into a sweat. "Lucky we didn't need it or else getting out of here would be a lot harder. Run into any trouble on the way up?"

Morita shook his head. "Not much. A few workers and only one armed guard. I guess Kuznetsov and his work weren't important enough to warrant the whole armada."

"Let's take advantage and get out of here with no more bloodshed then. We've still got a long hike ahead of us before we can pitch camp."

The chorus of groans only made him smile as he hefted Kuznetsov once more for good measure, then started for the nearest flight of stairs down.

It wasn't like he could blame his men for the displeasure though, this op defined everything the Commandos hated, everything they _weren't_. Over hostile lines in the middle of fucking nowhere, it had taken them literally all day to hike up to the base. Covert, Dugan hadn't even been allowed to bring his shotgun. And they didn't even get the satisfaction of fighting their way out or blowing the place to high heavens, no they had to be in and out without setting off any alarms. And now they had another day long hike ahead of them, the SSR couldn't send a plane or even a _car_ until they were back on friendly soil.

He'd be pissed off if too if he were anyone else. But he was captain and at least had to _appear_ unbothered. And when they ran into a half dozen agents, all of duty and headed for their evening meals, he stepped back and let his men take care of them, if only to see their moods boosted just that little bit.

It wasn't long before they were back outside, the air was fresh and crisp after the stale, recycled stuff they'd been sucking in inside the base, but it was cold, the promise of a harsh winter something none of them wanted reminder of.

"Let's try and make it a few clicks out then we can take a moment to regroup," Steve instructed, not breaking the steady jog he and the others had broken into once they'd stepped outside. "I want to get Kuznetsov properly secured and we can take the time to confirm where we're going from here."

Bucky, who was keeping pace without any sign of struggle, a far cry from the already cursing Dugan, offered him a quick smile and a slick. " _Yes sir_."

It was because Steve was looking at him, head turned just a little to the side that he saw the red glow light the back of his friend's head just before it was too late. He collided with Bucky, knocking both of them and Kuznetsov to the ground in a tangle of cursing limbs, he cracked his nose on someone's shoulder but the spell missed and disappeared into the treeline instead.

"We've got a dozen on our tail," Gabe was the one to report, "Hard to see but they look like wizards, all of them."

"Only one got away," Steve grunted, back on his feet in a second and throwing Kuznetsov back over his shoulder.

"And he brought the rest," Bucky scowled.

So much for them being cowards.

"Keep low and get to the trees. We'll engage when we get some cover between us."

It wasn't that long of a run to the treeline, a few meters maybe, but when spells were tearing bright, burning trails around their heads it felt like an impossible distance to cover. Steve was the first to break through of course, with Bucky right behind him, then Jones, Morita, and Dernier. Dugan was behind everyone, still a few feet out when a whip of gold crossed the distance between him and the wizards and caught him around the ankle. He fell with a curse and scrabbled for purchase in the dirt even while it began reeling him back toward base, Falsworth who had been just one step from making it to cover turned on a dime and dove for him. Both of his hands latched onto just one of Dugan's and his feet dug divots into the earth as he tried to provide a counterweight to the pull of the lasso but he barely served to slow Dugan's relentless drag backwards.

Bucky was the first to poke his head around the tree he'd been taking cover behind, rifle already on his shoulder and aimed at the first wand wielding man he could spot. He fell with one shot, but it wasn't the wizard with the spell on his friend, so he adjusted his aim and fired again and again and again. Soon the others were with him, their bullets wreaking havoc to the neat line the wizards had conveniently arranged themselves in until a bullet through the head or against one of the hastily erected shields they'd conjured in defense caused the spell on Dugan to drop.

"Nice of you to join us, boys," Morita drawled, sarcastic over the crack of his gun, when the last two members of their team finally reached the trees.

"Got tied up for a moment there," Dugan joked and earned disapproving groans from everyone for his efforts.

"How many more are left?" Gabe asked, momentarily taking cover to avoid an arc of yellow light.

"I count nine," Steve said. "Let's keep them busy with a steady line of fire, shouldn't be long before the noise draws HYDRA from their nest. They'll attack from behind and we'll fall back."

It was a good plan, it would have worked too, but then the woods were alight with the sharp crack of apparation and more wizards joined the fight. _A lot_ more. And suddenly they were surrounded.

"Shields up," Steve ordered, his own shield was already braced on his arm and blocking the sudden spellfire at their back.

The Commandos scrambled for their own, but Morita was too slow and was thrown off his feet by a spell that tore claw marks into his shoulders, then Jones fell, taking a curse aimed at Bucky's back.

"Form up around Jones and Morita." Steve had one hand on his shield and the other wrapped in Kuznetsov's collar, dragging him back along with him, leaving him with no free hand to fire. "Dugan, Dernier, get those shields facing our guys at base. Falsworth, with me on these ambushers in the woods. Bucky, give us some fire."

They circled around their fallen, shields blocking the worst of the curses while Bucky stood in their center, firing in all directions until every round had been expended. Then he was pulling Steve's sidearm from his hip, taking down wizard after wizard with each release of a bullet, but there was only so long even he could go. His gun clicked empty and a curse caught his chest just off center, Steve couldn't here the incantation, hadn't even seen the color of it, but the way he crumpled and the awful sound that tore from his throat immediately after left him with no doubt what he'd been hit with.

The wizard who had cast the Cruciatus died when the edge of Steve's shield made terrifyingly accurate contact with his throat, crushing his windpipe and severing his spine in one throw. It didn't ricochet back to him, it had fallen with the wizard, so he grabbed for Bucky's shield, lifting it just in time to avoid a flurry of ominous purple curses. They were just barely covered on all sides again, but it was a temporary solution.

"What've you got, Cap?" Falsworth grunted as he slid back several inches from the force behind the last curse to come in contact with his shield.

"Dernier?" he shouted. "Got anything on your belt for us?"

"Smoke," the Frenchman responded. "That is all I was allowed to bring. Nothing to go _boom_. We were supposed to go in quiet, yes?"

Seriously, _fuck_ covert ops.

"Lemme see what I can do with those."

There were only two grenades, but they would work as enough of a distraction to get them moving.

"Buck, can you walk?"

The sniper groaned low as he pushed himself into a sitting position. "I'm going to have to."

"Morita?"

"It's only a bit of blood loss, Cap. I can keep up."

"All right. Once the smoke gives us some cover we'll keep low, head back for base. Bucky and I'll grab Gabe and Kuznetsov while you three lay down some fire. There's only nine of them between us and the door."

"And once we're through?"

"HYDRA is easier to take down than wizards. Break through their front line and let them have at each other while we find our way out the back door. Yeah?"

"Let's go."

He waited, a breath in, a breath out, for a lull in the spells ricocheting against their shields. When it came, he pulled both pins at once and tossed them in the direction of the shadowy figures he could only just make out.

The moment the air was thick and clouded with smoke the Commandos were moving, perfectly in formation and carrying out Steve's directives to the letter.

They made it two meters.

 _"Ventus."_

The incantation came from behind them, from somewhere in the dense wall of smoke, and sent up a gust of wind that threatened to bowl Steve right from his feet and cleared the smoke in seconds leaving their backs exposed to the suddenly too close wizards.

Kuznetsov hit the ground hard and Gabe followed with only a bit more care as Steve and Bucky knelt, shields once again at the ready. Dugan, Dernier, and Morita crowded against their backs, guns drawn and the wizards somewhere behind them momentarily forgotten in the face of this larger, nearer threat.

There had to be thirty of them, most likely more, even after all the ones Bucky had taken down. They were armed, with wands directed at them, but no one fired and so neither did the Commandos, unwilling to break this strange standoff.

But then a man stepped forward, and he was unlike anyone Steve had ever seen. He was handsome, in a cold sort of way, but he was stripped down, washed out, bleached of all color; his hair was like the spools of thread he'd used before the serum and before the war to patch his shirts up, pale and thin with just a hunt of luster when the light hit it right. Even his skin reminded him of the parchments Harry's kind preferred, as pale and nearly see through as it was. His eyes were the only spot of color, two pinpricks of blue, still pale though, like entire lakes frosted over in the dead of winter. The ice over which was deceptively thin, just enough to present an illusion of stillnessm\, but just a little weight and you'd freeze and drown in the depths.

"Just you few?" He spoke with the unassuming lilt of just about anyone from the London area, but there was the undercurrent of something else there, something foreign, from parts farther north in Europe. "Seven men, seven _muggles_ , have been giving us all this trouble?"

The wizards shifted, shamed and uncomfortable under a quick sweep of disapproval from those pale eyes.

"I would be angry, but it is almost impressive. And yet tonight you didn't last so long. What happened?"

Steve kept his voice flat, void of the tension drawing his spine taut. "It's been a long day."

The man nodded and something like sympathy tried to paint itself across his face. "I will do you a favor then and keep it from going on much longer."

"You plan on killing us?"

"Yes." There was no inflection, no remorse behind the confirmation. This man would kill them and feel _nothing_. "I admire your fight, but you've been causing much trouble. Your repeated attacks against my men has had an effect on morale. It can't go on, you understand."

He wouldn't go down easy, none of them would. Jones was still out and both he and Bucky had nothing left as far as ammo, but he still had his shield and the Commandos were suitably armed. There'd be no winning, they all knew it, they were outnumbered and outmatched, but they weren't going to make it _easy._ The first wizard to cast a spell would be taken down by a hail of bullets.

And maybe they realized that, maybe they could see the resolve in their stances, the conviction in their straight gaze, and they stalled, hesitant to start the fight. Because none of them wanted to be that first.

But then a third party made the choice for them.

That strange, pale man had been on the cusp of breaking the stillness, his wand, as strange and pale as him, was aimed still at Steve's chest and a green glow he'd heard a good few warnings about was taking form at its end. But then HYDRA finally made their move and the wizards' almost certain win was destroyed.

They'd been biding their time, waiting until Steve's team and the battalion of wizards they were facing were caught up fighting each other, then they circled around and attacked from all sides.

The Commandos were surrounded twice over now, with the wizards on either side of them and HYDRA on either side of _them_. But it worked in their favor. All focus had been on Steve and his men, so when the HYDRA men jumped from the woodwork and set to work with their assorted rifles and tesseract-fueled weapons, the wizards toppled like a row of dominoes leaving a neat little gap for the combat team to slip through. Once they'd passed the wizards they were face to face with revenge seeking Nazis with guns that could literally vaporize them, but Steve had said it before, HYDRA was easier to fight than wizards. Even with Kuznetsov and Jones acting as deadweights on their shoulders they tore through the agents easy as they did any other day and were on the other side while the two forces were still trying to figure out who to fight.

"Keep with what we planned, through the base and out the back," Steve instructed, calm as any other time they were in the field, even with a half dead man over his shoulders and magic users and Nazis brawling only a few meters behind them. "We make it out and find somewhere to rest up, far enough away from here to keep them from finding us. We'll figure out our next move after."

"How far do you really think we'll make it?" Dugan was propped against a tree, clutching a stitch in his side, or maybe a bullet wound he'd acquired somewhere in the mess, it was too dark to tell. "We're all half dead, Gabe and Kuznetsov are both still out, and Fresno hasn't stopped bleeding yet."

Morita _was_ looking a little pale, he had his jacket balled up against his injured shoulder but it was nearly bled through already.

"What else can we do?" Bucky answered for Steve. "We can't fight, not like we are now. And we don't got a cavalry anywhere close enough to swing in and save our asses. So we either get moving or we die, those are the only choices we've got."

"There's one more," Falsworth said. "There's Harry."

"He doesn't fight," Steve was quick to refute. "Especially not against this many."

But Dugan had caught onto what Falsworth was suggesting and he'd taken to the idea already. "But he can do that teleporting thing, and he can take someone with him. He could take Fresno, maybe even Jones and the rest of us could carry on on foot, or hell, maybe he can take us all."

Steve didn't like the idea, bringing Harry out to the fight, but there wasn't looking to be much other choice and he'd said before they'd even left camp, before everything had gone to hell, that he would come if they needed. And they _needed._

He was the only one with a radio tuned and capable of reaching all the way back to camp, he unclipped it from his belt and tossed it to Falsworth.

"Make the call."

Somewhere in the trees behind them there was a roar of unnatural fire and screams he'd never heard the likes of.

"But make it while we run. Something's telling me the fight'll be winding down soon, and I don't think HYDRA's coming out of this one alive."

* * *

Steve had sworn to keep radio silence until the job was done. They couldn't risk the feedback of his radio drawing the wrong kind of attention at the worst time so he turned it off and assured it wouldn't come back on until they had Kuznetsov in custody and were away from base, the only other reason he might turn it on was if things went wrong.

So when he made the call, they didn't worry. Hours had passed since their estimated arrival at base, he and his team should have had their man secured by then and been halfway to rendezvous. But then Falsworth spoke when it should have been Steve and the whole clusterfuck of what should have been an easy job came out.

"We're calling for a quick extract." Falsworth was panting, great heaving gasps right into the radio as if he was running and had been for longer than even he was used to. "We've got one down, and wizards and HYDRA both out on the field making a mess of things."

"How the hell did that happen?" Peggy snapped. They'd worked this sort of op a dozen times over, she found it hard to believe they'd be so careless as to cock this one up all alone.

"We got to Kuznetsov and wizards were already there, interrogating just like we knew they'd be. Cap and Barnes were the only ones who could get through the wards so they went in, took them out, and grabbed Kuznetsov, but one got away and he brought the cavalry."

"How many?" Peggy asked.

"Thirty, thirty-five would be my guess. They were organized this time, split into two groups to trap and surround us, and there was a man leading them all. The creepy sort, pale all over and ready to kill us all, no fuss, no mess, for troubling _his_ men."

 _His men_? Harry held his hand out and Peggy handed over the radio without question. "He had blond hair? Almost white?" He asked, no preamble. "And blue eyes? Really pale blue?"

"Pale all over," Falsworth confirmed.

Harry had seen the man only twice, both times in visions; the first when he'd been young, handsome and mischievous as he robbed an old wandmaker, the second at the end of his life after decades spent rotting in a prison he'd created. But those two memories were all he needed to recognize him with just that description.

"That's Grindelwald. You all just faced _Grindelwald_. Do your best not to do so again, nothing I've taught you could defend against an attack by him."

"It's why we called. For you specifically. Gabe is out and Kuznetsov is slowing us down, we need you to pop in, do your teleporting thing and get us out of here. If not all of us just those two."

Harry didn't hesitate. "I can only take two at a time but nothing is stopping me from taking multiple trips. I need coordinates."

"I have them," Peggy said, "in the mission briefing."

"Peggy will give them to me, but it won't put me on your exact position."

"We'll go to Kuznetsov's lab, it's defensible."

"Then I'll find you there."

They ended the connection and Harry immediately turned to Peggy for the coordinates, but Phillips spoke up first.

"You'll have to fight your way through to them."

He didn't sound smug or excited, but Harry knew that this was always what he'd wanted.

Harry took a moment to find his words, ones that were free of insult and vitriol. Phillips was only doing his job, he had to remind himself, he was only trying to _end this war_ , he couldn't be upset if he came off a bit pushy while doing so. "Maybe. But I've seen these sort of fights, they're loud, chaotic, everything, everyone is in a mess. And I have a few spells that'll make me harder to spot, I might just be able to slip right through." Point made, he turned to Peggy. "Where am I going?"

She listed the coordinates off for him three times before he felt as if he had a decent enough grasp on them. He'd never tried apparating by coordinate alone, it was possible he knew, but not practiced often because there were _risks._ But Harry figured if he lost an arm splinching he'd just have Howard build him a new one, the inventor would love the challenge.

"All right, so you know where the lab is?" Peggy looked like she wanted to fuss over him, but she did a valiant job holding herself in control.

"I do." Of course he did, he'd sat with Rogers as he poured over the map of the base, plotted out their way to the lab and a backup route just to be safe. Finding his way to the team wasn't among his numerous concerns.

"Bring Kuznetsov back first and any of their wounded, then, only if your able, Captain Rogers and the others. Keep your head down the best you can, engage only if you have to" She broke character just long enough to take his hand and lean forward to dash a quick kiss on his cheek. "Be quick, be safe."

Harry smiled to reassure himself just as much as her, because what he was doing was so incredibly _stupid_. He'd made rules, he'd left London, endured an awful, near unbearably long sea voyage to a country where he had and knew nothing to avoid _this_. He was preparing to step into a fight led by Grindelwald, one wrong action, a spell cast in the wrong direction or the wrong wizard injured and the world he eventually returned to could be completely, _horribly_ altered.

But he was going to go anyway, risk everything despite the danger, because his friends were in danger, his friends could _die_ , and he had the ability to help.

"I'll be quick," he promised, and he forced himself to believe it. "I'll be safe. See you soon."

* * *

There was a worrying moment immediately after Harry disapparated from the tent where he doubted. He used imagery to navigate, a familiarity with where he was going and what it looked like to get him there safely, _not_ a string of numbers and letters he was supposed to silently chant like some strange mantra.

But it was only for a moment, a half a second in the seconds long trip, then he doubled down and focused and when he landed it was with all of his limbs attached. He'd been deposited at the edge of a copse of trees, there were mountains all around him and an imposing structure that had to be Kuznetsov's facility, but there was no fight.

There were _bodies_ , plenty of them; a few were riddled with bullet holes and dressed in dark, unmarked robes, but most were dressed as muggles and had died much more gruesome deaths. Some had been removed from their limbs, some relieved of their organs, and some had been charred to unrecognizable husks, all deaths wrought by dark spells.

The wizards had won this fight, there was no doubting that, and now they were nowhere out on the grounds and that was worrying. Because either they were inside, sweeping the facility for Steve, the Commandos, and their initial target _Kuznetsov,_ or they'd already found them.

This was the sort of time Harry wished for his cloak, wished it hadn't been reabsorbed and rendered obsolete once the Hallows had united. Because it had been _infallible_ , and he'd feel much better sneaking into a facility most likely crawling with wizards under an infallible invisibility cloak. But he didn't have it, not now, not yet, so the disillusionment charm would have to work.

In the encompassing dark that surrounded the facility the charm did its job well enough, Harry came upon his first two wizards standing at the entrance, guarding it from any who might try to leave, but he had them stunned and silenced and bound in rope before they even realized someone else might be lurking about. From their backs he stole a cloak, tugging it low over his face just in case the charm failed, then he went in.

Under the bright, harsh lights inside the building, the distortion of light that hid him was just a little more apparent, any who knew to look would find him. But Harry realized he was working with an advantage, the wizards thought they were fighting muggles. They weren't keeping an eye out for a wizard opponent, weren't thinking to defend themselves against magic. So he passed through crowds of them, because there were _many_ , more wizards he'd seen in one place in more than a year, unseen.

They had already reached the floor on which Kuznetsov's lab was occupying by the time he arrived, they were still several corridors away and working slowly and methodically but it wouldn't be much time at all before they were right on top of them.

The entrance to the lab was only locked, a first year spell was all it took to get him into the room and at the business end of several high caliber weapons. He only cocked an unimpressed brow at the Commandos as he silently latched the door and its useless lock back in place.

"Do you plan to kill the one who's getting you sorry lot out of here?"

"We're just a bit on edge," Bucky snarked, lowering his gun.

"I would be too if I managed to so thoroughly fuck up such an easy job." Harry put a second locking spell on the door, then the few wards he knew and muffliato to cloak the room. "They're a few corridors away, we have maybe two minutes, three at best before they're here. I won't have time to apparate everyone out, Kuznetsov maybe but they'll be on you before I can get anyone else."

A portkey could get them all out at once. Harry knew the incantation, had seen it done a few times before, but he'd never done it himself, didn't understand the theory behind it and now wasn't the time to be experimenting, the last thing he wanted was to muck it up somehow and leave them all incapacitated and at the wizards' mercy.

"So it'll be a fight." Steve looked weary, bloodied and beaten, but he wasn't yet resigned to lose.

Harry could only nod, there was no way around it. "It'll have to be. But there's only about ten men on this floor, it'll be tough but you can take them."

"And the rest?"

Harry huffed an anxious breath. "I'll keep them occupied."

"You're going to take on the other twenty wizards? _Alone_. You're going to die." That was Barnes and his every word was dripping with disapproval.

"I won't _die._ I'm going to keep them occupied," Harry reiterated. "I'll distract them for as long as I can to give you all time to make it away from here. Head for the closest occupied town, hide there, Grindelwald wants the tesseract but he's not so desperate he'll out the wizarding world to get it."

At least Harry hoped he wouldn't. Even Voldemort had been hesitant to outright attack the muggle world, and from what he knew of this decade's dark wizard, Grindelwald was meant to be smarter, more attuned to sanity than Harry's own dark lord had been.

"I don't-"

"Tell me how awful an idea this is _after_ we've made it back to base. They'll be here soon you have wounded who need to fight."

The _episkey_ Harry cast over it wasn't strong enough to fully heal the wounds on Morita's shoulder, but it stopped the worst of the bleeding and allowed some mobility of the arm. Jones was even easier to fix, a _rennervate_ reversed whatever had brought him and he was upright if a little groggy in seconds.

"Once they're all dead give it a few minutes," Harry said as he pulled Kuznetsov's dead weight against himself with two arms around the man's chest. "Let the building clear then go. I'll keep them busy."

He disapparated before any of them could protest further, Peggy startled when he arrived in the tent, but he only dropped Kuznetsov in a sad little heap then left again, he would have time for explanations later.

The second time he apparated onto the facility's grounds was much easier than his first attempt, now that he'd seen the basic lay of the land he could direct where he wanted to wind up with a little more accuracy. He chose the west end of the building, there were no trees at his back, only open land and the base of a mountain, the wizards would come for him in the opposite direction the Commandos needed to go in order to get away. But first he had to draw their attention.

Harry had discovered all manner of explosive spells from his books, none that he'd had the chance to practice because of their sheer destructive power, but in theory he knew they would be a sight to see. But in a moment like this, a good old fashioned blasting charm to the west wall of the facility would always be his first choice. And if he put a little extra power behind it? Well, he needed to get their attention.

It took another wall coming down and the creative use of a few wind summoning charms for him to get it. It was only a few, eight or so of the near thirty wizards he knew to be in the building, but once they got started more would come.

Harry had hidden himself under another disillusionment by the time they arrived and had retreated away a few meters. When they came to investigate their backs were facing him and he took the chance to stun two of the men closest to him. The dual flashes of red didn't go unnoticed, the remaining six turned on his position in an instant, curses already flying his way. But the moment the second stunner had left his lips, Harry was already apparating to a new position, back to the wall he'd just blown up to take a few more explosive chunks from it. Then he set off a caterwauling charm deafening and obnoxious, and shot a few more stunners their way just to keep them on their toes.

His goal wasn't to fight, he wasn't trying to finally test the spells he'd been massacring dummies with on Grindelwald's men. He was only trying to make as enormous of a spectacle as he could, draw enough men out onto the lawn and away from the fight taking place in the labs. So he channeled the spirits of Fred and George and he apparated and he cast and he blew things up, creating noise and confusion and pure havoc until wizards were coming from all entrances, shouting over the noise, casting curses into the dark trying to blindly strike him down. Until Grindelwald arrived.

The disillusionment had been holding up much better than Harry had ever thought it capable. By then the men knew they were fighting another wizard, they could even track his general location by the sound of his apparation and the light of his spells, but where to aim their own curses had to be guessed and was often guessed wrong. There were too many of them for a _homenum revelio_ to be effective and casting wildly missed every time because while they aimed high he kept crouched low to the ground. But when Grindelwald arrived they fell back, let their curses halt for a moment while they waited for their leader to make the next move. He swept his wand once in a great arching motion over the field and Harry's charm melted away.

Now would be the time to run. Apparate far away while he still had the chance. But it had barely been ten minutes, the Commandos needed more time if they wanted any chance at getting a safe distance away. So he stayed, he pulled his stolen cloak tighter against his frame and hoped the sticking charm on his hood held tight.

"Where did you come from?" Grindelwald's wand, the _elder wand_ , fell back to his side. He was comfortable and confident in the belief that Harry wasn't going anywhere. "And who are you fighting for?"

"I fight for myself."

The dark wizard saw through him immediately. "I don't believe that." He looked over Harry, at the trousers and plane shirt under his open cloak, not the usual wardrobe of a wizard, and came to a conclusion. "You're with the muggles. You're the reason they survived my men for so long. But why? How did they persuade you to fight for them?"

Harry didn't answer, Grindelwald wasn't interested in the answer, he just wanted to make Harry squirm, realize the hopelessness of his situation before he killed him. But he wasn't going to play the game. He'd already resigned himself to fight, all attention was on him and he needed to keep it that way a while longer. He was going to lose, he was going to _die_ , but he wasn't worried about it. He would die and come back, or maybe his body would ignore whatever grievous injuries it suffered and just keep powering through. The details of the whole immortality thing had never been made clear, but Death assured him there would be no reaping of his soul and now was as good a time as any to figure it all out.

He struck first and he didn't hold back, the killing curse shot from his wand and hit the man directly next to Grindelwald. He fell and the others reacted instinctively. Harry rolled beneath the barrage, threw up a shield to block the ones he couldn't, then he leapt forward and got to work.

He wasn't looking to cause mayhem now, he wasn't trying to lure and distract, finally, _finally_ , he was using those spells he'd only seen on inanimate targets. It was awful and gruesome and there was _so much blood_. But he loved it, he parted souls from their bodies and the Heart sang.

He ignored the consequences of what he was doing, he let that worry fall away; if a wizard fell to his wand maybe they were meant to, maybe he was carrying out their destiny, not mucking up his future. He didn't know. He didn't _care_.

He lasted longer than he thought he would, he cut through whole swatches of wizards who struggled to land even one curse on his constantly twisting _moving_ dancing form, but all it took was one, a lucky hex that split the bone in his leg and the tide shifted from his favor. _Ferula_ kept him on his feet, but his mobility was done for.

A curse that reminded him too much of _sectumsempra_ struck him in the chest and tore through cloth and skin and sinew like butter. Then another hit him like a punch to the gut and he fell back, breath knocked out of him. The fight was over, Grindelwald was probably moving forward already to finish it and he would finally see how much the Heart had altered him.

But then there was a series of sharp crack- _crack-_ cracks and heads all around him exploded. The men surrounding him ducked down, shields went up and they turned to face the new threat. Fucking _Steve_ and his team, who'd ignored the plan he'd suggested to save their miserable lives and jumped into a fight they had no hope of winning.

He let himself just lay where he'd fallen for a moment, choking on curses and blood with each shaky lungful of air, then he snapped a weak bandaging charm that would do nothing much against the wounds on his chest then stood back up. He threw a blasting charm at the cluster of wizards closest to him, they'd thought him dead already or close enough to it and hadn't had any reservations turning their backs on him. They died bloody, but he was already moving on, tossing everything he had at these men, with no plan or finesse, only the mad drive to get their attentions back on _him_. Because he could survive this, nothing they could throw at him would keep him down, the Commandos couldn't.

"Haven't you had enough?" Grindelwald stepped forward, blocking a cutting curse aimed at one of his men's neck.

"My friends tell me I don't know when to quit." Harry's arm shook when he raised his wand, from blood loss or exhaustion or both, but his feet were planted and he was willing to go until they killed him.

Grindelwald smiled, he looked intrigued and maybe a bit impressed. "You're going to fight me? You'll die."

"That's all right," he spat out a glob of blood and maybe a few of his teeth with it. "I can take it."

He didn't stand a chance. Maybe at full health, after a good night's sleep and a rousing pep talk he might be able to stand against Grindelwald for a _few minutes_. But as he was then, half dead already, bleeding into the dirt and seeing double, it wasn't any sort of fight.

But he had to try, because Steve couldn't die. Bucky couldn't die. None of them could die.

Grindelwald side stepped his choking curse, ducked beneath his jelly legs, and batted away his bat bogey as if they were nothing. Harry's shield faltered when it came in contact with a hail of conjured arrows, one burst through and buried itself in his shoulder. He stumbled back just in time to avoid the blasting curse that destroyed the ground where he'd just been standing, but he caught on a body and he went down for the second time that night.

Grindelwald was over him in an instant, his lips formed a familiar curse and there was a burst of green from the end of his wand and Harry knew that that was a mistake. Because the wand in Grindelwald's hand was _his_. The mortal curse that bound it was still in place, but the fractured Heart the dark wizard held knew that one day it would be united and one day it would be his. And just as it had both two years ago and sixty years from now, the wand refused to kill its master.

The killing curse struck him in the center of his chest, it stole the breath right out its lungs and Harry swore he felt his heart skip a few beats, but then nothing. He didn't die. And in that moment of shock, because what else could Grindelwald do but gape at what should be impossible, Harry landed his first spell of the duel and threw him several meters away and onto his back.

He scrambled for purchase, used the men he'd bowled into to crawl back to his feet, but he didn't attack, because finally he was beginning to wonder who was really going to win. Because the if killing curse, the one curse that couldn't be blocked or beaten or survived, couldn't kill Harry, what could?

"Men!" His baritone roared over the fight, maybe amplified by magic, maybe by fear. "Fallback."

And they did. Immediately. The sound of disapparation harmonized with the sound of gunfire and in seconds they were gone and the fight was over.

The Commandos were thrown off guard, the wizard's had been _winning_ , there had been no reason that they could see for them to retreat. But then their attention fell to Harry, the only moving figure in a sea of corpses.

Steve was the first to his side and used one gentle hand on his shoulder to halt Harry's attempts at levering himself to his feet. The wizard scowled at him, and batted at the hand as he did so.

"What the hell happened to going for safety?" he snarled.

"What the hell happened to not dying?" the captain snapped back.

Harry's scowl twisted to something more petulant. "I had him."

"Jesus Christ." Steve turned to Bucky, who'd fallen to his knees beside the pair only seconds ago. "Is this how you felt all those times I got in fights?"

Bucky huffed a weak laugh, but it was diminished by the overwhelming worry on his face. "Just about. Gabe, we're going to need you to put that medic training to use real quick here."

There wasn't much he could do; Harry had already splinted his leg and bandaged his chest the best he could. He broke of the shaft of the arrow, but the head buried in his shoulder would have to remain unless he wanted to risk making the damage worse. The rest of his injuries were minor in comparison, a few cuts and bruises to numerous and widespread to warrant the waste of bandages.

"I'll be fine," Harry muttered, trying to hide the way his breath whistled, maybe the blow to his chest had cracked a few ribs. "I'll patch up when we're back to base. Right now we need to move, they might be planning on coming back."

"Apparate back," Bucky ordered. "Rendezvous is a full day's hike away. We'll make it fine but you can go."

Harry shook his head. "I can't. Too tired, to hurt, I'll splinch myself if I try."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means I'll have to walk with you, at least until I can get some energy back."

"There's a little town," Dugan said, map spread out in front of him, "maybe about fifteen, sixteen clicks, west. We can head there instead of rendezvous, rest up, arrange transport."

"We could make that in four hours," Morita agreed. "Maybe five."

"We'll have to go in quiet," Steve said, but his agreement was writ all over his face, "this isn't friendly territory. If it's occupied we'll have to keep moving."

"HYDRA doesn't like to set up so close occupied territory," Gabe reasoned. "They hide among the sheep. Chances are, it's not."

"Then let's move." Neither Steve nor Bucky offered him a hand up, so Harry used a handhold on both of their shoulders to push himself onto his feet. He bit down on his lip when a wave of agony crested from his head all the way to his toes, breaking the skin in the process, but he managed to keep his moan of pain silent.

"I could carry you."

"I'm injured now, Barnes, but I'll curse you blue once I've recovered if you suggest that again."

* * *

Harry lasted a half of a kilometer, then his legs mutinied and tried to make his sorry state even worse by sending him spilling all over the uneven ground. He growled, terrifying as a schnauzer, when Steve scooped him up without so much as a 'by your leave' and carried on walking, but he knew he didn't have the strength to make it even the full kilometer let alone all fifteen. So if he wanted to get there before he died from blood loss, he'd have to suck up his pride and let the supersoldier carry him.

There were worse places he could be, he supposed, as he settled in for the journey. He might be getting blood all over Steve's uniform but the stripes were garish anyway, he was improving it.

Without him slowing them down, they made the hike in the four hours Morita projected, even if everyone but the two supersoldiers panted and cursed the entire way. Threads of orange light were slowly trying to creep along the horizon by the time they made it to the town's edge, morning was coming, but there was no time for rest.

"Let's do a quiet sweep," Steve instructed before they broke the treeline. "Make sure we don't have any Nazi forces hiding in with the goat farmers. There looks like some kind of storehouse just past that hill, that'll be rendezvous. Harry you can rest up in there while we look around."

"You should stay with him, Steve" Bucky said. "He should have someone keeping an eye on him. And on the chance we do find some Nazi's crawling around here, your stripes'll give us away in a second."

"He's got a point, Cap," Dugan said.

"All right, Harry and I will wait. We'll give you until sunup to get back, if you're not I'm coming to look."

"Fair."

The structure Steve had designated as rendezvous had once been used to house goats if the smell was anything to go by. But it was warmer than being out in the open air and being there meant Harry wasn't stifling any sign of agony as he was jostled in Steve's arms. The entire hike had been torture, passing out from the pain in his everything would have been _mercy_ , but he hadn't and he refused to slow their progress and put them in danger by putting words to his discomfort, so he'd suffered in silence.

"You haven't stopped bleeding yet." Outside, morning was just trying to creep over the horizon, but inside the shed was still near completely in darkness, Harry couldn't see anything and didn't think Steve could either. But he was a supersoldier, of course he could see the stain of red that hadn't stopped growing across Harry's torso yet.

"It's less now though." Harry's attempt at comfort was as weak as his voice. "I'll survive until we make it back."

"You hope."

"Has anyone ever told you your bedside manner sucks, Rogers?"

There was a rustle of fabric Harry interpreted as a shrug. "I've never had the chance to practice it. It's always been me in the bed."

"Not such a great feeling having the roles reversed, huh?"

"You were going to let them kill you."

"I didn't plan on dying."

"But you _were_. That was stupid."

"I suppose you and I aren't as different as I sometimes like to think."

"I'm not laughing," Steve's voice was sharp with anger.

"Neither am I." But Harry was, at the irony of this conversation. "I've heard the stories; you've been jumping onto grenades, into enemy territory with no backup, into fights you know you can't win, all your life. I've _seen_ it. But it's always been because you had to, right? It was your duty. Your fight. You could so you did. You would never stand by and do _nothing._ Only when it's someone else's turn to do right, do you see the recklessness and the danger in what you do."

"We could have all fought, together. We did."

"No. You all almost died. They were going to kill you, _Grindelwald_ was going to kill you."

"We've fought them before," Steve argued. "We've won and we could have again, you just needed to…"

"Sit back and do nothing?" Harry scoffed. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. I refuse to do nothing."

Steve went silent and stayed that way for a while after.

Harry left him to his thoughts, he was exhausted and the thin cushion of hay he was resting on wasn't as uncomfortable as he might have thought. He could get some sleep, prepare for the next leg of their journey home, maybe even build up his drained magic enough to apparate them all back himself.

He managed half an hour of restless sleep. Only a half hour. Then something outside their little shed moved and Steve's reactive jolt to attention startled him back to full, unhappy consciousness.

He tried to look around, listen hard for whatever had startled the man, but his average human ears didn't pick up anything. "What is it?"

Steve silently unfolded himself from the floor and slid toward the closed entrance. "Voices."

Every now and then, around the entire perimeter of the little barn, the wood of the walls had warped and bent just enough to separate, allowing a way to see out and _into_ the structure. Steve leveled his eye with one such gap, stooped down just enough to stand even and looked out into the slowly lightening countryside.

It was only a few seconds before he was quickly moving away.

"Wizards. They're casting spells around the barn. We need to go."

His body screamed in protest at his quick and rough movements, but Harry scrambled to his feet and across the little bit of space to try and see what Steve had.

There were less than before, maybe ten at most, but they all had their wands out and the sight of the man at their forefront made his stomach drop out.

His day had been long, awful, full of blood and death and all sorts of unpleasantness. And now it had just got worse.

"I'll have to apparate us out." Harry moved back to Steve's side, grabbed hold of his arm and steeled himself. His magic wasn't recovered, not near enough. But they _had to move_. "I'll drop you off at town, somewhere close to the others and I'll keep moving."

Steve frowned down at him, he didn't yet understand how much everything had changed, but he would. "Why would you keep moving? If this is another plan to try and draw them away from us-"

"Steve," he only whispered, but the urgency in the one word stopped the captain in his tracks. " _Steve_. Those aren't Grindelwald's men."

"I don't understand."

Harry grit his teeth, breathed in deep to try and quell some of his panic. But all he could think of were the men outside, with their Auror badges and unspeakable robes, with the familiar face of Gawain Robards leading them.

"They're not Grindelwald's," he repeated. "They're _mine_."

He'd fought alongside Robards, he'd been there during the Battle of Hogwarts, fighting Death Eaters and helping to assure Harry's victory. He'd also been there the night Harry was lost to time, among the mob there to tear the wards from his ancestral home and drag him forward to answer crimes he hadn't committed.

And now he was here.

"They're from my home," he forced himself to speak steady, he didn't have time to repeat himself, Steve had to understand _now_. "They're here for me and for nothing good. We need to leave."

He understood. He still didn't know all that was happening, but he understood the urgency, Harry could see it, so he tightened his grip and disapparated. _Tried_ to.

It was like hitting a wall made of pure magic, caging them in and cutting off their one hope of escape.

"Wards are up, we're stuck."

"We can keep them back then, just until the others get here."

"No." Harry hadn't let go of Steve yet, he rested all of his weight against the man for a moment, he knew he could take it, and he let himself think. Think of a way out. Think of a way they could survive this. _Steve_ could survive this. He could only think of one.

He released him, moved back just enough, then said. "Stand by the wall."

Steve didn't hesitate, he trusted him fully, implicitly. Harry felt only one stab of guilt, straight through his chest, then he turned his wand on Steve. " _Petrificus totalus._ "

Harry didn't let himself see the look of total shock on his friend's face when he carefully lowered him to the ground. A gentle tap at the crown of his head and the disillusionment washed over him, hiding his now silent and still form completely from sight.

Then he moved away, back to the spot he'd almost managed to find rest, he sat down and he waited.

They didn't keep him waiting long.

"Potter." Harry tucked his knees to his chest, dropped his face into the cradle of his arms at that familiar voice. How long had he been wishing to be reunited with the people of his home? How long had he been pushing and working to get back? But not like this. "You're in there, we already know it, and we've already surrounded you. Please don't make this a fight."

Before, to save Steve's life, he'd been willing to fight, to the _death_. But now, to save it again, he knew he couldn't. So he kept still and quiet as the door to the barn swung open and the head auror stepped inside. He was flanked on either side by three wizards each, they all had their wands raised and lit, but they stopped short when they saw him.

"Merlin, you look a fright."

Harry shrugged his uninjured shoulder, carefully casual. "Turns out I don't get along with any dark lords, no matter the time."

Something tight and unpleasant crossed Robards' face. "Did you kill him?"

Harry shook his head. "He's not meant to die for another sixty years. And I'm not the one who's meant to do it."

"Good. One less mess of yours to clean up."

"Are you here to kill me?"

An eerie calm had swept over him and it unsettled them, he could tell. The wizards beside Robards shuffled nervously, but the man himself remained steady. "Of course not."

"To take me back then? For what? You can't fix what happened, only I can."

"I know."

Of all the responses he'd expected, that hadn't been one. "You…know?"

"You're our hero, the boy who lived." A smile of false adoration and _mania_ twisted the auror's face into something awful, and Harry shivered. "We're here to bring you back, to get you to fulfill your purpose of saving our world one more time."

That was all Harry wanted. He'd been striving for the same thing since the start. But why did it feel as if Robards and he still weren't on the same side?

"I can," he tried to appeal, a tremor was trying to work its way into his voice. They weren't going to kill him. He didn't know what they were going to do and it made him afraid. "I can fix this. Go back before the fight at Hogwarts and stop the union of the Hallows. We can stop all of this before it even happens."

"No."

 _No?_

"That's not the plan."

"What then?" Harry whispered.

"You've been gone a while. Things got worse, a lot worse." And yet Robards didn't sound angry, he sounded serene, he sounded _pleased_. "But then we met someone and things got better. Seeing thousands of our people die from plague and starvation and _muggles_ is horrifying, but there was good that could from it."

Robards stepped closer, his silent shadows moving with him, and Harry pressed himself further into the wall, as far from him as he could get.

"In our time of dying, we realized that hiding is no longer an option. Even if we stopped the war, even if we repaired the wards and found solitude again, they wouldn't forget, and one day they would find a way to end us." He spoke with the gentle, quiet tenor of someone speaking a bedtime tale, and it worked because Harry was captivated. "So we must let our weak die, and those who remain will evolve into people that can end _them_. A people who will no longer cower in fear from those weaker than us. A people who will be powerful and plentiful enough to rule entire countries, continents, _worlds_ , instead of the isolated corners of them."

"And how do you intend to accomplish that?"

"Through your help of course."

His terror and foreboding spilled over in the form of a tear, only one that cut a trail of cleanliness through the dirt and the blood that mucked his face. "I would never."

And Robards laughed in his face. "Well see, you don't have a choice."

The moved in tandem, conjuring coils of dark gray light to curl around his limbs. Harry grit his teeth as they yanked him forward, cruel in how little they cared for his obvious injuries, but he kept quiet and he didn't struggle.

"No fight?" Robards had the audacity to look disappointed.

"Would it do me any good?"

"No, but your _Harry Potter,_ fighting is all you do."

And that said it all didn't it? Any other time, in any other place, he would have fought until one of them was dead. But he had more than just himself to think about.

"Not anymore."

"Good." He stumbled on his injured leg when Robards gave a leading tug to the binds trailing from his wand.

The unspeakables had been hard at work while Robards' was preoccupied; they'd hardened the dirt just outside where Harry had been hidden to stone and in its face carved a ritual all too familiar. There were runes different, and it was bigger, more complex, but the basis remained the same.

"The ritual your friend used to send you back was genius," Robards said when he noticed where Harry's attention had fallen. "But flawed. Luckily a few runic genius' survived your plague and were all too happy to work out those kinks."

Harry went willingly when Robards dragged him to the center, allowed the man to arrange him just so, and kept quiet when the unspeakables, one at each point of the runic shape, began to chant.

His stomach twisted even while he tried not to laugh bitterly at the _irony_ of this situation. He'd wished for this, wanted it _so bad_ it ached. He'd been willing to break his code and his morals and all that he stood for to get to it. And now it was here.

He was going home.


	14. Chapter 14

_Then_

Strucker gave them the news of their lost savior turned downfall and the wizards were ecstatic, beside themselves with relief, exhilaration, anticipation. But there was trepidation there too.

Potter had been a source of awe for them since his start, he'd killed their dark lord at _one_ , then again at seventeen with a borrowed wand and unwavering grit. Then he'd united what were arguably the most powerful artifacts known to their kind, mastered them as if it were nothing, and brought plague and war upon their people for it. And now they were expected to fight him, subdue him, and keep him contained until their world was put to right.

They were cautious when forming their plan to bring him in, overly so, but Strucker could find no reason to blame them. If the boy was half as powerful as they believed him to be there would be a fight on their hands, and that was without taking into account the organization he had at his back. Potter was with the SSR, he was working alongside Stark and Carter, Rogers and his Commandos, to go in unprepared would be suicide.

So they chose their best, debriefed every wizard and witch with care, and when they went back to the era of worldwide war, it was with the understanding that some of them might not be coming back. They were sure the fight ahead would be just as awful and bloody as the one hosted in the Great Hall of Hogwarts near four years ago.

It wasn't.

The group of wizards, led by the British head Auror Gawain Robards, touched down where they'd left, an outcropping of rocks at the seaside, far from muggles and wizards alike, they got their bearings, shook off the effects of the drain on their magic then apparated as one to their first destination.

See, finding the _when_ Potter had fallen had been their toughest challenge, but it wasn't their _only_ one. _Where_ he was holed up was just as pressing of a matter and one that posed a challenge in its own right. The SSR, by nature of the sort of organization that they were, didn't have their address listed in the directory, and the exact details of any missions carried out in their name were _vague_. So they followed the history books, what little they explained, alongside newspaper articles archived for over half a century, and battle reports and plans with more redacted than visible all the way to a secret facility at the base of a mountain range that spanned much of Europe. They arrived several hours too late.

Their boots touched the ground and they were slipping in dirt churned up and turned muddy with blood. Some of it congealing, most of it still fresh and bright and red. The air stank of magic, the destructive sort that put all their hairs on end, and bodies were _everywhere_. Torn apart, blasted full with holes, burnt to husks barely recognizable as human. Potter was among none of them.

"Did he do this?"

The Auror who spoke was the youngest of the crew, but not at all lacking magical proficiency because of it. Robards had chosen him because he was only a few years fresh from Hogwarts, he'd walked the halls the same time Potter had. And even if they'd been in different years, and different houses, he still had a better idea of how he operated than the rest of them did.

"Could only be." Robards tried breathing through his mouth as he spoke, but it only made the stink of recently deceased bodies coat the back of his tongue instead. He closed his mouth. "With muggle help maybe." The corpse just left of his foot was plugged with muggle bullets. "But he was here."

"Some of these men were wizards."

Unease swept across their ranks when Scabbord, an Auror from the French division, retrieved a wand, snapped clean in half but still unmistakable for what it was, from a close corpse.

"What was he doing fighting wizards? This is a muggle facility."

Robards didn't have answers. The muggle Strucker had said Potter had aligned himself with a muggle military organization, one that, before this awful plague had hit, knew nothing of magic.

"Let's find Potter," he ordered, voice quiet and stern, but still more than enough to bring his men back in formation. "And we'll ask him ourselves."

The facility and its grounds were empty of anyone still alive, it was lucky only that Potter wasn't among the dead, unlucky that he was _nowhere to be found_. But that was what they had the Unspeakables for.

They might be close enough to narrow in on their wayward savior's location with the help of a bit of obscure (and perhaps a little dark) magic. Flakes of blood carefully scraped from where it had been smeared across the skull of a creature most of them hadn't even known existed was mixed into a potion of a deep umber color that was then poured right into the dirt at their feet.

They all waited, breath held in anticipation, then the head unspeakable, Fowler, began moving, following tracks only he could see.

"He went on foot?"

And that was a relief for Robards, if Potter had simply disapparated, there would be no way their potion and its magics would be able to find him. Not even the unspeakables could track magical signatures.

"He was hurt." The unspeakable whose name he'd never learned explained. "Badly. The blood he's left behind makes it that much easier to see. He's moving west."

They'd studied the area and all that surrounded it in depth before apparating to it, the map of the terrain was etched into the back of his eyelids. He knew Potter was headed for the closest bit of civilization, a little settlement where he was sure to find some way to contact his comrades. They had to get to him before he did or else he'd be lost to them.

He lifted their only map from Scabbord's belt and painstakingly worked out the coordinates for a spot just outside of where the little village would be.

"Let's find him quick and quiet and let's not make a mess when we do it," he ordered. "Potter might be hurt, but animals fight fiercest when they're wounded. Don't let him take you by surprise."

He recited the coordinates to his men once more, just to be sure they all had where they were going locked in tight, then he gave the order to move.

They disapparated in tandem, moving seamlessly through the space to land with less pomp than the average wizard. Rows of neat little houses and perfectly cut squares of farmland stretched before them, too many for their few to search successfully for their boy-who-lived, but there proved to be no need. Fowler moved on sure feet through deserted streets and past silent homesteads until they reached a small farm, clearly empty and in poor repair.

Robards looked on the place with suspicion and more than just a little nerves. "He's here?"

"Around back."

The unspeakable led them to what had once been a barn or a shed of some sort; its doors were closed tight and there wasn't a sound from inside, but a smear of blood, bright and shockingly red across the wood confirmed they were in the right place.

"Give me some wards," Robards ordered, careful to speak even lower than a whisper. "Anti-disapparation, anti-portkey, and a few for proximity."

His team moved quickly, the wards were up in only a few minutes and finally it was time. Robards was the mission head so contact fell to him; he was nervous, near shaking with it, but he was ready for a fight. He moved forward until he was within touching distance of the little shed, and then he spoke.

* * *

 _Now_

Harry's second trek through time was markedly different from the first. It was deliberate and carefully controlled, the perfect example of how it was meant to go when compared to the mad tumble he'd experienced when falling back. This was the ritual done _right_. When they landed, he was still conscious, even if just barely; his injuries had gone long enough untreated and that short bit of travel, while smoother than he'd first experienced, still exasperated his wounds enough to have him biting down on his tongue until it bled.

It took him a moment to breathe past the agony and blink away the black spots that danced across his vision; long enough that the auror contingent grew tired of waiting and began dragging him forward and out of the room they had arrived in. He'd lost his glasses sometime during the tumble through, or maybe before, during the fight with Grindelwald, the world had already been so fuzzy with pain he hadn't even noticed their absence until now. But even without them he could tell they were somewhere he'd never been.

He got just a glance of the room they'd landed in, cavernous and empty with dark walls and a smooth floor, before he was being hauled into a long corridor without a single door marking its white walls and harsh fluorescent lights that stretched in either direction. There were men waiting for them at the end of the hall, another dozen to join their already numerous group, but these men were carrying _rifles_. Slimmer and more modern than anything he'd seen Steve and his team carrying, but still unmistakably muggle. As he stumbled along he could feel the press of their gazes on his back, open and curious.

"How long has it been?" Robards demanded of the closest man as soon as they drew close enough.

"Five minutes, if that," was the prompt reply. "The Baron went to do one last check before you brought him in. We're putting him in I4."

"Lead the way."

At the end of the corridor there was an elevator wide enough to fit the entirety of their group. There were only three buttons on the panel; Sub-1, Sub-2, and one marked only with a star. They moved up to Sub-1 and out into a second corridor, just as white and harshly lit, but the wall to his right was made up entirely of glass, allowing him the perfect view into a room just as big as the first. It was a lab as far as he could tell, equipped with monitors and consoles and hulking equipment he could never hope to identify even after spending so much time learning from Howard. But the lab wasn't their destination. He was taken around the corner and shoved into a room that was all too familiar.

It was missing the mirror that usually took up all of one walls but the inconspicuous camera in the corner that blinked red to show it was powered on made up for its absence, and the two chairs separated by a cold slab of a table were hint enough. He was to be interrogated.

Robards shoved him into the chair facing the door but also the camera. Any other day he might have fought to remain standing, even if it was a fight he'd never be able to win, but his legs were shaking from the effort it took to keep himself upright and he was sure he didn't look at all intimidating as battered and bloody as he was. So he let himself be manhandled and didn't even protest the shackles that looped around his wrists and anchored to the floor.

Robards left without a word, likely retreating to wherever feedback of the camera was playing, but they didn't keep him waiting in the silence for long. Five hundred, eighty-two labored breaths passed and the door opened to allow in an unfamiliar man; his hair was buzzed short, nearly to the scalp, the hairstyle gave him a sharp, no nonsense sort of look that was only exacerbated by his ramrod posture and the strange monocle settled over his right eye. He was followed by a woman, entirely unremarkable in every way save for the bulky duffle she carried with her and who lingered by the door that hissed shut behind them. She remained there until the man, still silent, settled in the chair opposite Harry and gestured her forward.

The duffle bag was placed on the table and unzipped to reveal a whole assortment of first aid equipment. Up close, the nervousness in the woman's posture and gaze was evident, but her hands were steady as she began treating his wounds. They were numerous; ribs were wrapped, the gashes and punctures caused by spells stitched up and taped over, burns treated with salve and bandages, and all the while the man watched in silence.

Harry mimicked his silence, not making a single sound even as the woman punctured him repeatedly with her hooked little needle, dragging the thread unpleasantly through his skin without any offer of anesthesia.

After every break, bruise, and laceration had been sewn up and patched over she reached into her bag for a strange mechanical device made up entirely of a copper metal and formed in the shape of a half circle. He blinked at in confusion, mind slow in its exhaustion, but then she placed curve of the object around his throat and the missing half of the ring sprung from within it, clamping the circle shut around his throat. It was a collar. He jerked in his manacles, snarling with sudden rage, and the woman fell back against the table with a gasp of fear. The man however, remained still unmoved but he _finally_ spoke.

"Settle. Conserve your energy." His voice held the hint of an accent, faint but there. "I have questions for you."

"Uncuff me," Harry demanded. "Get this collar off and you'll have all the answers you want. I've cooperated until now and I'll continue to as long as you do."

"I would like to." The soft placation only agitated Harry more. "I really would, but I have many employees here and I'd like to keep them safe."

"I'm not a danger." His beaten form was testament to that.

"Not now. But only because of that." One of the man's long fingers tapped against the base of his own throat, mirroring Harry's to refer to the collar they'd shackled him with.

The thing was tight, sitting flush against his skin, he wasn't sure he'd be able to worm a finger beneath it if he had one free. Where it met the nape of his neck a low, consistent buzz was emitting; he didn't know what it was doing but it made his head swim and something inside him roll with unease.

"Give it time, let everyone's settle. Then we can revisit the idea of getting that removed."

Harry didn't believe him for a _second_.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I am Strucker, a scientist, an _innovator_ , when your world began to fall I offered my aid. The war I cannot do much for at the moment, I do not have an army to command, but this disease that's stealing your people's magic I can help with."

Harry was intrigued despite himself. "You have a cure?"

"Of sorts. I cannot stop the deaths, but those who live and lose their magic, I can fix. Return it to them."

"How?"

"You could call it a transfusion. Like the donation of blood, only it is energy, magic, that's being transferred."

"And what do you gain from this?" Everything about Strucker gave off the vibe of _wrong_ , his words were hint enough and the men posted just outside the door with their rifles and utilitarian jumpsuits were telling enough. "You're not a wizard, you're muggle, you knew nothing of us until our wards began to fall. But now you want to help? And not just help us survive the plague and the war- Robards read me the act- they are planning domination, total domination over muggles. They intend wizards to be the top dogs and _you're_ the one who put the idea in their heads. Why?"

"Because this is what my entire career has been working towards. I don't intend to see the muggles killed or dominated, I intend to see them _evolved_ , but only with your help."

And he didn't like the way that sounded, not a single bit of it, but he burned with curiosity. "What do you want from me?"

"Answers, to start. These objects you united, the Hallows, how much do you know of them? Where do they come from? What can they do? How much have they changed you?"

"That's it?" Skepticism dripped from every word. "I answer a couple of questions, perform a few tricks and then I'm, what, free to go?"

"No." Strucker settled his hands delicately on the table top. "There would need to be tests, some of them would be intrusive. But it's for the betterment of _all_ mankind."

And where had he heard that before? The _wrong_ he'd been feeling around Strucker only increased as he stared down the man and his monocle and his too calm smile.

"And this is all your money and resources you're putting into this? Or do you work for a larger organization?"

"There is more than just me. We are collection, multiple heads, all of whom want to our species thrive."

And that was all he needed to understand. "You're HYDRA."

Strucker didn't respond, but Harry didn't need him to, he knew the answer with a certainty that just _was._

"You spin a pretty tale, but whatever outcome you're looking for, it's not the betterment of _all_ mankind. You won't get my help."

The man sighed, a bit beleaguered but not entirely surprised. "Well your cooperation would have made everything much easier, but it's not _required_."

The door at his back opened and a squad of Strucker's men entered to pull him from his seat.

"How are you still here?" Harry was full to the brim with horror, betrayal, and _questions_ , so many questions. But that was the one he couldn't seem to shake. "Sixty years in the future? Steve would have died before he allowed HYDRA to flourish."

A bland little smile graced Strucker's face, the most emotion he'd shown throughout the entire interaction, and somehow it and the way it lit his uncovered eye was so unspeakably _smug_. "He did."

* * *

There was a burst of light from just outside the door, a rush of heat and the smell of ozone, and Steve's limbs fell loose once again. He shook himself from the pile of straw he'd been lowered so gently into and ran for the door, shield already drawn and ready to bash some heads in, but they were gone. The near dozen wizards in blood red and navy blue robes had gone and they'd taken Harry with them.

He didn't remain to investigate, the runes burned into the unnaturally hard ground meant nothing to him, and there was no sign of a single remaining wizard, so he took off in a sprint, inhumanly fast, as he pushed to get to the town his team had gone to find help in.

They'd been given until the sun was up to return and it was nearly there by now, so it was no surprise to find them all together, already halfway back to their agreed meeting spot. The Commandos, however, were plenty confused to see him.

"What's happened?" Of course Bucky would be the first to see how _not right_ he was. Steve could feel his desperation constricting his lungs the same way asthma once had and could only imagine the sight he must look. "Did Harry get worse?"

He took a moment to collect himself, pull the cloak of in control commanding officer around himself because he _needed to be in control_. "Harry's been taken. Wizards ambushed us and they took him."

Bucky's face went tight with shock. "Grindelwald?"

"No. His own, he said."

"What does that mean?"

Steve shook his head, he still wasn't even entirely sure himself. " Did we manage to make contact?"

"We got through to base," Gabe said, always calm even in the face of crisis. "Phillips said there was no way he could get men in to pick us up so far out from rendezvous, but Stark offered to bring out his own craft. If we can meet him about four clicks north he'll be able to pick us up without being spotted."

"ETA?"

"He guessed around an hour, hour and a half."

Steve nodded, short and sharp, and started moving. "Let's go then." But then Bucky's hand was locking around his wrist, and he was looking up at him confused and scared and desperate for answers.

"Stevie," he kept his voice low, as if he were talking to a wild animal, imploring. "I-we need more to go on then what you just gave us. _What happened?_ "

"They came from nowhere." His voice was hoarse with an unspeakable emotion, but he didn't bother clearing his throat, it wouldn't do him any good. "We tried to run, disapparate, but there were wards. I was ready to fight, but he _wouldn't_. He put a spell over me, kept me from moving, speaking, _anything_. I was stuck there, and all I could do was watch as they bust in and dragged him. He was so _scared_." Steve could feel his carefully constructed calm starting to unravel, he wanted to rage and panic, but Bucky was still holding him, his palm a warm, grounding presence. "And then he was gone."

He had to keep moving after that, he couldn't just stand there so close to where Harry had been taken. He needed to get to rendezvous, get back to base, and get to work finding and retrieving Harry.

Howard was there when they arrived, leaning suave as could be against the same plane he'd flown Steve out to Azzano in. He took stock of their group, exhausted and battered as they were, and noticed immediately Harry wasn't there when he knew he _should_ be. His reaction to the bitter news was awful.

Peggy's was worse.

They touched down to camp and she was there immediately, pristine hair being ruffled by the motors of the plane and not seeming to care a lick about it. They disembarked but none of them could look her in the eye, not Steve or Bucky, not even Howard. And when Harry didn't get off the plane with them, her entire expression _crumpled_.

"Debrief. Now."

They went to Phillips' tent and they recounted all of the nights events blow by painful blow. The Commandos fell quiet when it was his time to recount Harry's capture, and he did so with careful efficiency. When he was done there was silence, the awful kind that stunk of defeat. That just wouldn't do.

"So what's the plan?"

Something pained passed over Phillips' face. "Captain Rogers-"

"Harry was taken because he was too injured to fight after he saved our collective lives in a fight we should have been able to finish ourselves. So _what_ are we going to do to get him back."

"Steve." That was Peggy, low and soothing, as if she could smooth over his reckless rage with just the power of her sweet voice. And maybe any other time she would have been able to, but not today. "I…I'm not sure that's a possibility."

Absolute betrayal washed over him. Steve had expected Phillips to be against mounting any sort of rescue mission, he'd been the one to deny a rescue of the troops in Azzano, he was a realist at the worst of times. But _Peggy?_ She had a relationship closer than maybe anyone in the room with Harry. She said often he was like her sweet, younger brother, and not even she was willing to try and find him?

"No, _listen to me_ , Steve. I, more than anyone here, want to see him back. I would mount my own rescue mission without hesitation if I thought for a moment I would be successful. But he's too far out of our reach."

"What does that even mean?" Bucky snarled.

"You saw the work we were doing," Howard said. "He's been trying to get home for over a year now, we've been manipulating his magic, doing all kinds of experiments on him just to give him a shot. Without him and his magic, we don't have a chance."

"I saw the ritual they used to get him home," Steve said, refusing to believe the inventor. "I can draw out every rune in it and we'll use that."

"Runes require magic."

"We can get you magic." They'd run into plenty of wizards so far, next time around they would detain one instead of killing them all. Getting him to perform the ritual would be a challenge but…

" _Steve_. It can't be done. It's not just the ritual, it's not just the lack of magic, he's gone. Gone where it will be decades before we could reach him."

And finally he faltered, because there was a quiver, probably unheard by anyone who wasn't a supersoldier, that broke Peggy's voice mid-sentence. The time he'd known her had grown longer than a year by now and- save for his brief stint with the USO- he'd worked with and under her for most of it. They'd seen some awful things together, _done_ some awful things; watched comrades die, reduced to smoke and ash and _nothing_ , witnessed the devastation of hundreds and thousands of families torn apart, displaced, _wiped out_ in the fight. And never had he seen her cry. _Not once_.

But now the careful line of her eye makeup had begun to run as tears filled her eyes and he finally started to listen. Harry was gone.

* * *

"He's stubborn. Always has been from what I know. Too willful for _anyone's_ good."

The team of Aurors had stuck around for the interrogation, for security reasons they claimed, crowding in to the observation room with the ICW representatives and his own men to watch the show. When it ended and Strucker joined them Robards, the Aurors' lead, was the first to offer his opinion.

Strucker only waved his hand dismissively, he sank down in the chair at the head of the long conference table, attention half fixed on the video feed of Potter who sat silent and withdrawn in his chains and collar.

There had been so much talk of the young wizard. The ICW had suggested the possibility of bringing him in and it was as if the floodgates had opened. Potter was all the wizards knew to talk about; his history, the luck he seemed to wield like a strange power, the ruin he'd brought upon them. But meeting with him, sitting across a table from him and holding conversation, and Strucker found himself not at all impressed.

He was just a boy; beaten and bloodied, defeated and terrified and doing so poorly to hide it. There was no sign of the ancient power that had supposedly brought about his world's end of days; the collar went around his throat and suppressed all uses of magic immediately, just as if had all of Strucker's other subjects.

If there was some incredible power Potter had been granted, whatever or whoever had left him beaten down and so close to death had rendered it null. Or he was hiding it. Biding his time and waiting for them to show weakness before he struck. It would be up to Strucker to find out which _before_ the boy was given a chance to strike.

"He won't work with us." Moreau, France's representative, had always been the cynic in their collective. "We've given him no reason to trust us, and that was _before_ he knew we had allied with HYDRA."

These wizards thought so _small_. It was no wonder they'd been hurtling toward extinction before he'd offered his aid.

"What do we care if he doesn't trust? I had no need for it before, I certainly don't need it now." His magical allies remained still confused, so he elaborated, slowly and with care for the more dimwitted among them. "The interrogation was a gamble, a shot in the dark we didn't need to take but did because we _could_ ; we didn't funnel our time and resources into finding your boy hero so we might ask him a few questions. We don't need _answers_ , we need his power, his longevity. Trust and consent are nowhere a requirement."

"Then what now? Where do we go from here?"

Strucker gave a cavalier little shrug. "The same we went with all the others. He'll need to be matched with the pods, acclimated to the crystals to prevent any overwhelm from its power, all standard procedure. Only with who you've sworn to be a more powerful host. If it is as you say, we'll draw the power for our entire army from him. Then our campaign against your enemies will begin."

And finally their hesitation and confusion had been erased, replaced now with anticipation and fervent excitement. "How quickly can we begin?"

* * *

They kept Harry in a cell, bare and a white with a sad little cot pushed in one corner and a hole in the floor in the other. He got two trays a day, with a bland mush he could only stomach after four cycles of starving himself and a break for fresh air or human contact never. All there was to do was sit with his back propped against the wall and count; the fraying threads at the hem of his pants, the cracks in the cement floor at the foot of his bed, the flecks of blood that stained his shirt and the bandages they hadn't changed since first treating him.

It was its own brand of torture, the monotony, it was no surprise men went mad in total isolation. But he kept to his counting and kept out of his mind because he already knew if he fell in too deep there would be no coming back.

Steve was dead, or so Strucker had said, and he didn't doubt him because it made sense. They were sixty years in the future, of course Steve had passed on by now. But it was the _way_ he had said it that drew him short, he spoke as if Steve hadn't died from old age or natural causes but in his pursuit against HYDRA. And Harry believed it, he could see Steve dying no other way. He just couldn't _process_ it. Mostly because he wouldn't let himself think about it, not even for a moment. But even if he did, he'd only just been with Steve, he was a bit bruised up, exhausted and on edge, but he was whole and strong and alive. He'd been at his peak, surrounded by men who were the best at what they did, there was no way he'd fallen.

So he counted and eight tray cycles passed, four days by his best guess, before anything happened. He'd eaten his gruel, pushed the tray back through its slot, and was considering a pre-bedtime nap when the door that had bolted shut behind him that first day and not opened since swung open to allow four men, all toting heavy guns and serious scowls, into the cramped space. They didn't speak to him, barely even looked at him, they just yanked him to his feet, locked cuffs around his wrists, and dragged him out into the hall.

Harry had been too preoccupied with his misery to take in all of where he was being detained when he'd first been brought to his cells, but he was aware now and mapped out the route they took as carefully and inconspicuously as he could manage. His cell wasn't the only one, there were two rows of at least a dozen facing inward with a neat little corridor bisecting them at the end of which stood a door, heavy and metal with four different locks and two scanners to disengage. Outside of the cell block were the rooms he remembered being held in for those first few hours and just around the corner from those was the lab. He'd spent enough time working alongside Erskine and Howard to recognize one on sight, even if it was bigger and so much more technologically advanced than any either man had worked in before.

Strucker was at the center of the hive of activity occurring among the machines and pieces of equipment, conducting the flow of activity with a nod in the right direction and a short command in the other. He tracked Harry's arrival with a little smile, but didn't bother approaching until he'd been wrestled into a chair like one found in a dentist's office only scarier and held down with a restraint for every limb and a few more for his torso, just to be safe.

"You've healed well."

"Must be the gruel you've all been feeding me."

Strucker's smile stretched a little wider, he'd missed the sarcasm or else consciously chose to ignore it. "A special nutrition blend, everything a growing boy like you needs."

Harry let a mocking little smile thin his lips. "Your hospitality is unmatched."

"And it only gets better."

He wasn't lying. Aides with as much personality as nameless HYDRA goons were allowed buzzed around him like good little worker bees, adjusting blank monitors and arranging devices with ominous dials and numbers sketched across their faces. A sticky electrode was adhered to each of his temples and a little monitor attached to his pointer finger, while Strucker drew a rolling stool to his side, perching on its edge like a particularly inelegant crane.

"We'll be getting to know each other well these next few months you and I," he said, gentle and coaxing in a way that may have fooled anyone but Harry, who had spent much of his youth dealing with Albus Dumbledore. "I see no need for there to be hostility between us."

Harry only snorted which tapered into a furious hiss when an aide stuck him right in the crook of his elbow with a syringe full of clear fluid. "I might agree if you weren't, you know, _HYDRA_."

"Our reputation precedes us then." Strucker sounded almost pleased, the sociopath.

"I met a few of your predecessors. We didn't get on very well."

"First impressions aren't _everything_."

"The second hasn't proved to be much better."

Strucker hummed noncommittally, he pushed himself along his wheeled stool to get a better view of the monitor closest to Harry and the information it was reading out. "Well unfortunately not everyone can be pleased. I'll warn you only once, you shouldn't be so swift in declining my offer of clemency. It's the only one you will receive." He spun a half turn on his stool, moving to face an aide lurking just out of reach. "How does he read?"

She responded immediately. "His ECG is irregularly irregular and the frequency of his EEG are slighter higher than normal, around fifteen hertz."

"He's anxious," Strucker concluded from that babble of nonsense, he settled a hand on Harry's knee, sweeping his thumb in a circular patter where it had landed. He was trying to comfort but Harry could only feel his tension spike at the unwanted touch. "You'll need to settle, sedation only muddies the readings."

"I must not have a thing for being trussed up and tested on. Who would've thought, right?"

"Give us a few moments." The aides all scurried away in an instant, moving just far enough away to no longer be within hearing distance but still close enough to be immediately at his side again when called. "Harry."

"HYDRA guy."

"Do you know what we're preparing to do?"

"Something incredibly unpleasant I suppose."

"Momentarily, perhaps," Strucker conceded. "But no, past the temporary discomfort and fleeting pain is something revolutionary. Right here, in this room and this moment is where our new world begins." Strucker leaned forward, closer to Harry, his face was open and curious as he spoke. "Why do you fight it? We want the same thing, we should be working together to reach it."

"Is that why you have this collar on my neck? Why you kept me locked in that cell? Strapped to this chair? Because you want us to _work together_?"

"You don't trust us. You've built this image of us in your mind, one where we're the villains to be fought and defeated. Until something can be done to rectify that we keep you contained, it is for the safety of my men and myself."

"And this?" Harry jerked the straps restraining him to the table, as a reminder of their presence more than an attempt at escape. "You haven't brought me here to be tied down and tested on in some act of self defense. You said before you needed my magic as _transfusion_ and now you're going to try and take it, _steal_ it."

Strucker waved away his accusations without a sign of remorse. "We're stealing nothing, only drawing from a source to create a new power. If you survive, and you were chosen specifically because you _can_ , you will have lost nothing."

"That doesn't make what you're doing any less a violation of every basic human right I should be afforded. I didn't agree to being held here and I didn't agree to any of your tests and I won't _ever_."

"Why would I care if you _agreed_ to this? You're here, that is what matters."

"You must want it for something." Harry was no Hermione, he wasn't scarily brilliant or any good at deductive reasoning, but he knew how to read a room and how to read a person's intentions even better. "Otherwise you wouldn't have stopped your cronies in their preparations to have this heart to heart where you insist we can change the world _together_. You need me _and_ my consent for something more."

Strucker smiled and he almost looked impressed. "Well, isn't it nice to see that not all wizards are entirely oblivious? Your guesswork isn't exactly correct, but it's somewhere in the same vicinity as correct. I _need_ your consent for nothing, but if we could find some common ground, some way for us to put aside our animosity so we might work together, we could achieve great things. You will be useful to us as our conduit for only a short time, once it's run its course something must be done with you. I'm only offering an alternative that doesn't involve continued imprisonment or death."

Harry laughed and it was filled with bitter incredulity. "It sounds pretty, what you say. But that's what your sort do isn't it? Dress the shit up in sweet perfumes and pretty disguises so we forget if only for a second what you're selling. You want me to join HYDRA, commit to torture and oppression and genocide. You should have talked more with those wizards you've allied yourself with before you though to come to me, they could have told you that's the sort of thing I'm very emphatically _not_ into."

Strucker sighed, but he didn't look disappointed only a little exasperated. "Well, we will have more than enough time together to see about changing that, won't we?" He waved his hand and the aides were back. "But first we must make it through what is debatably the most rigorous part of our procedure." A cap of a hundred electrodes was pulled over his head and his jaw was forced open to accommodate the sudden intrusion of something thick and rubbery. A mouthguard. "Before we can allow for any transferal of power you must be keyed into the unique energy of the pods in which it will take place and for that we'll need an idea of just how much magic you'll be providing. Casting a few spells in demonstration will work at times, but we find the raw, untamed sort to work best."

Harry jerked uselessly on the table, cursing low and vicious when a second syringe went into the juncture where his neck and shoulder met.

"It's unfortunate a certain level of distress is required to give us access to such magic."

Cold crept along the fiber of his muscles, slow and radiating from the point the needle had stuck. Where it touched his nerves went numb causing his limbs to fall slack and unresponsive until he was unable to move at all, completely paralyzed.

"These next few days will certainly do nothing to aide your goodwill toward me," Strucker was still speaking, but his voice and his words were warped by Harry's sudden and violent panic. "But it is a necessary evil I am afraid."

The man stood and paced across the room, he came to a stop behind one of his many nameless aides, one who was manning a large console bolted to the ground several meters away. He looked over the man's shoulders to whatever controls were on the console, and said, "Start him at four-fifty."

Harry realized too late what was coming; the electrodes at his temple, the guard in his mouth, Strucker's ominous words should all have been warning enough, but it wasn't until the aide was flipping a switch and the lights above flickering ominously at the sudden buzz of electricity in the air that he realized. But then there was _fire_ and he stopped thinking altogether.

He'd been under the Cruciatus before, more than a few times as a matter of fact, but something about this was different, worse. The pain was terrible, cold in a way he couldn't comprehend and localized to the space in his head, but not anything he hadn't experienced before. No it was the energy behind the pain and its cause that made it worse than anything he'd suffered.

The Cruciatus was a curse of passion, there had to be emotion poured into, anger, hatred, _feeling_. But there was none of that with Strucker and his men. Harry writhed on the table and they watched dispassionately, as if his agony were just another thing to be studied. There was something in the clinical coldness of it all that left him feeling devalued, less than human. And while some may argue it made no difference the emotion behind his torture, pain was pain, he couldn't agree; the difference was there for him and it was _noticed_.

When it stopped the aides were there again, shining concentrated beams of light into his dilated pupils and checking the strength of his restraints. Somewhere Strucker was speaking, collected as usual, but Harry could only make one of every few words out over the rush of blood in his ears.

He understood the order to resume though, and this time at least could brace himself before the pain was there again.

He bit down on the rubber of the mouthguard until he was sure his teeth would cut right through, but he was intent on not screaming, not showing them any more weakness than he could manage. Even when his lungs constricted to the point where he could no longer draw in breath, he flailed and he gasped but he didn't even try asking for help. Maybe if he died or _whatever_ it was he did these days he'd be spared going through whatever torture they had planned for him.

But then of course an aide was there, hands _everywhere he didn't want to be touched_ , yanking at the fabric chafing at his throat, ripping loose the straps holding him down so they could flip him over, knock loose whatever was restricting his airways. But Harry's hand was freed and then he was reaching for the man at his side, because as he gasped for air something else was gaining strength in its place.

Around the oppressive weight of his collar was the slow tingle of a power kept repressed for too long. _His magic._ Something was seeing his magic negating the collar's work until he could feel it rebuilding his drained reserves. He didn't hesitate, it could be gone any moment, so he reached out, grabbed the aide and he pulled.

The pain had stopped, his lungs were loosening just enough for the spots that had been trying to blot out his vision to disperse, and the cold sweep of the paralysis drug had disappeared abruptly, but it wasn't enough, he was in distress and his magic reacted in the only way it knew how.

Howard had used mescaline to draw a reaction from his magic, intravenous drugs and severe hallucinations to stress him out just enough to see it react in his defense. They had never used pain, never even _considered_ it, but of course it worked just as well as the drugs. Better even. His magic lashed out in his defense and it latched on to the first being it could find.

The aide screamed when the invisible force reached out for her and dug its claws in deep in a way his still partially bound limbs couldn't. It searched for the brightest spot in her being, even tarnished with the horrors she'd been complicit in in HYDRA's name her soul promised to be a good source of restorative energy. So he tugged at it and he pulled, still too lost in the pain and disorientation of four hundred and fifty volts to the head to realize what he was doing until it tore loose in a way that wasn't meant to be, and flooded his aching body with a cooling energy that swept all the way down to his toes.

He fell back on the cot, little bit of magic expended, and the aide fell back onto the sterile linoleum. Her eyes were gaping wide but there was a blankness behind them Harry already recognized, he'd seen it before in a man he'd never been able to cure.

"Sedate him."

Harry didn't fight, the energy he'd put into that one act of defiance had left him totally drained, so when a second approached, needle of sedative held aloft he didn't even word a protest. He let it dig into the muscle in his bicep and within seconds the world was gone.

* * *

The procedure went like this; the collar Potter wore emitted low frequency shocks to disrupt the electrical pulses that allowed his ability to cast magic. To test the strength of his power, stressors were introduced and the shocks emitting from the collar lowered just enough to earn a reaction from his magic while still not allowing enough control to cast anything that might do them harm. They'd done it enough to know what results to expect, anything that might go wrong they'd encountered already and learned to deal with.

When they started with Potter all went as normal, the reaction from his magic was impressive, more powerful than most others they worked with but nothing too out of the ordinary. They gave him a short break to note down the first round of results and give the boy a quick reprieve, but when they began again it was immediately apparent that something was wrong.

The readouts on the machines spiked, higher than anything they'd ever seen, too high for the machines to get a proper measure of. Then he began hyperventilating, drawing in breaths too quick and too short for him to properly recover and when his aide went to help the boy whose lips were quickly turning blue, he attacked.

It happened too quick, Potter had her around the throat, not tight enough to even restrict her airways, but she went pale so quickly Strucker knew something else must be happening. The girl was looking down at Potter, her pupils were blown with what might be pain and an undeniable, primal _terror_. She wailed an awful, chilling sound and men were rushing from all over to subdue their wayward subject, but Potter let go on his own and as he slumped back onto his gurney relief spread across his young face. While the aide he'd trapped fell like a marionette without her strings and her face was _blank._

"Sedate him."

Potter was unconscious within seconds, and the unresponsive aide carted away to be looked over while Strucker turned on all those who remained.

"Who can tell me _what we just saw_."

"That wasn't a malfunction." Unimpressed eyebrows drew down over his monocled eyes, but the aide who dared speak up didn't even falter. "We've performed this test enough to have it down to an art, and the inhibitor was lowered exactly as it should have been. But it's not foolproof, we always knew it wasn't. If a greater energy were to run through it, the technology would fail. And it did, that wizard was powerful, more so than any we've dealt with yet, the readings prove it."

And they did, they steady incline of magic was recorded perfectly on the monitors until there EEG's had no longer been able to track the level of activity. It was impressive just as it was baffling.

Strucker had considered the possibility that Potter was downplaying what he was capable of; allowing the wizards to catch him, bring him back to this time, and HYDRA to hold him for so long for some motive the Baron would have uncovered eventually. But this was something else entirely, they had proof now that Potter was more than he seemed, _much more_ , but it seemed as if not even he could control it.

"Doctor List." Strucker's right hand stepped closer to his side, attention intent on him. "This is, I believe, a development to be discussed with our allies in the ICW."

List nodded and left quickly from the lab while Strucker took another moment to survey the scene before him. "Put him away for now," he nodded to Potter, still deeply unconscious. "Keep him sedated until we can be sure he won't override the inhibitor the moment he regains consciousness. I expect an update on our Lorna's condition once you have it in hand."

He left with those simple instructions and went in search for List, who'd retreated to the corridor adjacent where a space to contact their wizard allies had been specifically set up. He was speaking to a head floating sans body in green flames, explaining the mishap. Within the hour the room was at capacity with representatives from each faction of the ICW, there to hear the story from them directly.

"Where is the girl?" The representative for the US' community was the first to speak up once the entire tale had been recounted. "The one he attacked?"

"Seeing our medical team, I believe, I hadn't yet got the chance to check."

"We'd like to know her condition."

It was a strange request, but not one he couldn't fulfill easily enough. A quick comm call down to medical and one of their team was on his way to give a report on how the girl was.

She wasn't well.

"Complete brain death," Malakai, one of the leads in the medical team, was succinct and to the point with his explanation. "We're recording no neural activity, no responses to light, sound, pain. Whatever he did sucked the life from her and we have no way to tell if it's permanent."

"The soul." Malakai, and all the others, turned to Britain's ICW representative, the one who had spoken up. "Not the life, he sucked the soul from her, and it is permanent."

"How do you know?"

"Because that's what he is, what the Hallows made him. A creature who deals in souls and death." Britain turned to Strucker. "We told you he was dangerous, we told you the misery he brought on us and you didn't believe. You were amused. But now you see, he is capable of atrocities."

The wizard expected Strucker to be horrified, to balk from the creature he held in his home and finally concede that he didn't understand half of what he believed he did.

But he didn't. No, Strucker _smiled._ Because this is where they were different, the wizards looked at Potter and saw and aberration, something to be feared and locked away. But he saw something _more_.

"No, not atrocities." The wizards took on a look of bemusement, he'd done nothing to hide the excitement in his voice, the awe. He didn't want to. They had stumbled upon something incredible in Potter, and if they could not see or realize then it was their own loss. "He is capable of _miracles._ "

* * *

 **A/N: So I've been playing it kind of fast and loose with the timeline, just throwing shit down and hoping it all worked out in the end. Of course it didn't. So to fix my fuck ups I built a timeline following the order of past, present, and future events, I'll work on formatting it properly so I can put it on my tumblr for everyone else to see. But in the meantime the important thing to know is Harry went to the past at the very end of 2008 and was brought back January of 2012. It's been nearly three years since the Hallows were united and everything that's happened, specifically in the wizarding world, will start to become more and more apparent now that we're back in his time.**


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